Barack Obama Quotes

I never met Mahatma Gandhi, but, I think everyone felt they knew him even if they hadn't met him.

The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them.

It has always seemed to me that Barack Obama has studied intensely and learned a great deal from Lincoln.

No prisoner in history – in fact, no individual in history - has received so many honors and so much recognition all over the world as Nelson Mandela.

When FDR died in 1945, he was still paralyzed from the waist down. After he died, his portrait was put on the dime. Through his illness, he went out of his way to minimize his difficulties. Of the thousands of pictures taken of him, only two show him in a leg brace or a wheelchair.

I've learned to appreciate the thinking of John Kennedy.

Architects have to become more aware of exactly what is involved in designing barrier-free buildings and homes.

I know that no matter what is said about Martin the King Jr., what he contributed, what he gave, what he meant, what he means all over this planet cannot be tarnished.

For me, Lincoln is like just a handful of people - a Gandhi, or a Picasso, or a Martin Luther King Jr. - who is an original and captures something essential.

There's something about these steps [in Oval Office] and thinking about everybody who's walked here and all the business that's been done here.

Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown . . . Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of men.

I think for the next 50 years I'm not going to be able to stop because of the light that you shine for me and so many millions of Americans.

I think Barack Obama is an amazing man and president. His legacy is ongoing.

I am very much a scientist, and so I naturally have thought about religion also through the eyes of a scientist. When I do that, I see religion not denominationally, but in a more, let us say, deistic sense. I have been influence in my thinking by the writing of Einstein who has made remarks to the effect that when he contemplated the world he sensed an underlying Force much greater than any human force. I feel very much the same. There is a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery.

A wholesome regard for the memory of the great men of long ago is the best assurance to a people of a continuation of great men to come, who shall be able to instruct, to lead, and to inspire. A people who worship at the shrine of true greatness will themselves be truly great.

I wake the dead. I bring Jackie Robinson and the Roosevelts to life. Who do you think Im trying to wake up?

Mandela means a lot to the world. He's something special. There's only a few people in the history of mankind with that kind of charisma.

I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

I think continually of those who were truly great.

I wasn't trying to be a role model for anybody. I don't think that you can.

I think that leadership more than anything is about setting a course and describing a vision for people.

I think it’d be a great honor to be able to influence someone’s joy.

So I think (Obama) definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

I make intelligence cool. I make spirituality cool. If we can make one's devotion to God cool, then I think I did a great thing. I can rest in peace.