Barack Obama Quotes

The rise of civic society is not a negation of politics, but marks an opportunity for the involvement of the people.

Democracy only works, as President [Barack] Obama spoke of in his farewell message, if it's driven by the people and the people stay active and vigilant and speak out and let their concerns be known.

What's wrong is that we are not participating to make this the type of government it needs to be.

I'm fascinated by political enthusiasm.

The most powerful thing we can do is get involved locally. Help our local community and become community activists in our own smaller circle.

A robust democracy requires active participation.

What I was excited about was the opportunity for punters to be part of politics. The whole idea was to allow the voices of people outside this weirdo palace of Westminster to be heard. I thought the whole social media thing might be really positive.

We want to make politics sort of entertaining. If it is entertaining, people are going to be interested in it, and if they are interested in it, they might think more about it and maybe involve themselves in some way down the line.

I think it's important that members of the United States Senate spend time not just on Capitol Hill but making contact with ordinary people and engaging them in the political process.

The volunteering spirit of Londoners is part of what makes this the best big city on earth.

The only way change happens is when people become more significantly involved in the political process.

My hobby (politics) has become my life. I have the greatest life imaginable. I think I have a greater life than anyone in the universe, in fact.

I don't even think much about politicians. I think about the people in the audience who applaud the politicians. They are your fellow countrymen and they're the ones you live with - that should be who we target for education and enlightenment.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.

We want to make nation-building a people's movement.

If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: "I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing electoral campaign."

It is tragic that so few young people in Western democracies vote. They have forgotten that their ancestors fought for the right to choose and change their leaders. They don't realise that their votes are more important than their tweets or Facebook posts.

No matter what your politics is, we ought to be thanking people for volunteering.

Some observers compare elections in some countries with sports events, where people are but spectators. Moreover, elections must not be mere interludes for pushing a lever and then retreating to passivity, for democracy demands committed participation in the daily workings of society.

Should people be mere "interested spectators of action," not "participants," restricted to lending their weight periodically to one or another sector of the "responsible men," as advocates of "manufacture of consent" have recommended? Or should their rights transcend these highly restricted bounds?

What's interesting is this election year has made the citizen groups off-limits. All these citizen groups? - local, state, national? - that really do things and improve the country, they're never asked to be in these electoral campaign discussions.

Seventy-seven percent of the people that have given money to Bernie Sanders are people that have given less than 200 bucks. That's a lot of people, folks. That's a lot of enthusiasm.

Good government could never be a substitute for government by the people themselves.