Barack Obama Quotes

People think if they voted for somebody, they should reflexively defend everything they do or say. And if you voted against somebody, you should just as reflexively oppose everything they do or say. It's not very helpful. What's more constructive for our kids is to go on a case-by-case basis, evaluating particular policies.

I voted against the climate-change legislation. Not that I don't believe we should move to a clean-energy economy, and it can be good for South Dakota's economy to do so, but it was started out as a very partisan bill in the committee.

President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.

Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans.

By the time Africa is developed, it will be the wonderland of the world, 'cause it will be able to make use of all the mistakes of other nations. But it nah go just drop out of the sky. So we have to put in work.

Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.

When you talk to a Republican, many of them just outright say, 'Yeah. Climate change isn't real,' without assessing the facts, and it's a big problem. It's not a red or blue issue, it's a green issue... Not because of facts or science but because of emotion.

Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a certain divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives. And our great parties have too often been far apart and untrusting of each other.

Our two-party system has served us well over the years, but never better than in those times of great challenge when we came together not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans united in a common cause.

Making these changes is a matter of life and death for our country, and it will give our people a chance to lead a better life.

The policies we debate and enact in Congress have a real impact on people across the country. Climate change, immigration, economic inequality - each of these issues have become hot button, partisan topics, but support or opposition on these pressing issues shouldn't come down to party.

I'm tired of divided government. It doesn't work very well.

We can't let 535 people continue to limit the progress of a nation of more than 300 million.

In their political careers, Obama and Biden faced down lobbyists, Tea Party carpetbaggers, and Washington gridlock.

It's crazy that we happen to have a country where it depends on what political party you are in whether you believe in climate change or not.

I'm on a mission partly to make a difference in the world for the better, starting with the kids. They are the future.

Politics presents few win-win situations for partisans on either side.

The party where humorless thought police work to enforce a rigid ideological discipline isn't made up of Democrats. It comprises Republicans.

Two decades of experience as an entrepreneur and CEO has informed my view that our priorities must stress improving educational outcomes, rebuilding America's infrastructure, lowering health care costs, addressing climate change, reforming immigration, and ushering in an advanced energy economy.

At certain moments, both the WEEE Act and the First Step Act appeared doomed to dead end in partisan gridlock and procedural hurdles.

Pushing gun control drives people [in my district] crazy, gay marriage, abortion, deficit spending.All of that stuff adds up to be a problem for Democrats.

I have made education a top priority of this Administration because when we get it right, when every child learns, America will be a more hopeful place.

Why can't a democrat get fired up about protecting the environment and enacting gun control legislation just as right wing republicans get fired up about making sure that children have access to assault weapons and banning 'the Catcher in the Rye' and 'Harry Potter'?

We've just been sort of spinning our wheels for such a long time, for decades really, with each new president being considered illegitimate by the other side. That's been the case ever since Bill Clinton. And it's a - you can't keep frittering away your political capital that way and expect there not to be some long-term rot that sets in.

We've had periods of meanness in American politics. Actually, the dawn of partisan division in America was basically in George Washington's second term, when it was obvious that he would be the first and only consensus president.