Barack Obama Quotes

Young people have so much more power than they tend to think to be able to affect politics. And if people will organize and get involved and go out and knock on doors and hand out leaflets and make a change, then they can determine the future.

Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me.

A better educated electorate might change the reason many persons vote.

I think I will always have a connection to young people, to try to bring their voices to the polls, bring their voices wherever they can make a difference.

Forget the polls and remember the people.

Politics is not a spectator sport. You can't just sit on the sidelines.

Sometime between elections we should concentrate on doing something.

I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything - fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself - and then you kind of go, 'Actually, this voting thing is amazing,' because you have a chance to change it, right?

Be informed, ask questions, band together with your community, and fight at the local level. And make sure you take your local elections as seriously as the national ones.

If you are conscious and really want change in this world, and you don't vote, then what was all the fighting for? All the things our parents and our parents' parents fought for?

I didn't think politics had anything to do with our daily lives. I had never voted. Well boy I know now.

I ask you to find your voice and use it not only to choose your elected officials but to shape the issues that will shape our lives.

We the voice of the young world. We the voice of the people.

Our job is to help people take ownership of the process of electing their government. As leaders, our job is to inspire others and not discourage them.

Remember, I'm not running against Rick Perry; I'm running against apathy.

I think nuance is very important to have in the conversation, nuance that's been lacking for a long time. A lot of voting organizations only exist every four years, putting all this money into "your voice is important!" Wouldn't that be nice, if that's all it took? Voting is the first political action for most people. But if you don't follow up then voting is not actual participation but just a one-off.

People should organize people to just turn up and participate in the democratic process. Knock on doors. They may not be old enough to register to vote, but they can urge their teachers, their parents, their grandparents, their mothers, their fathers, and others to get out and vote.

Without the political parties and the volunteering work of their members day in, day out, we would have a very different sort of politics and society.

ALEC is one great organization, I think, for growing future political leaders.

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

I have referred to myself as an accidental activist on more than one occasion.

We need to find a way to empower citizens to make governments take notice.

My focus as part of the leadership is to keep talking about the independent voters, independent voters - how do we get the independent voters back?

You don't choose a party because it's the flavour of the month. I feel I will be able to work under a political system. I feel if people like me don't enter politics to bring change, who will?

When I turned 18, was the first time that I really started concentrating on politics. And I started doing so because I realized that in order to really create and generate change, it has to come from changing laws... so I started campaigning for Norman Lear's foundation, which was Declare Yourself.