"I think that Ive learned some lessons over the past four years, and the most important lesson Ive learned is that you cant change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside. Thats how I got elected and thats how the big accomplishments like health care got done – was because we mobilized the American people to speak out. Thats how we were able to cut taxes for middle class families. So, something that Id really like to concentrate on in my second term is being in a much more constant conversation with the American people, so that they can put pressure on Congress to move some of these issues forward."
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
"Over the last fifteen months weve traveled to every corner of the United States. Ive now been in fifty...seven states... I think one left to go. One left to go — Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to, even though I really wanted to visit — but my staff would not justify it."
"It is important at this point that Congress offer specific constructive approaches to what’s proven to be a foreign policy disaster because we’ve got too much at stake to simply stand on the sidelines and criticize...If we simply cut off funding without any structure for how a redeployment takes place, then you could genuinely have a Constitutional crisis or at least a crisis on the ground where the president continues to send troops there but now they’re being shortchanged in terms of armaments and support...The notion that as a consequence of that [2002 Congressional] authorization, the president can continue down a failed path without any constraints from Congress whatsoever is wrong and is not warranted by our Constitution."
"One election will not fix everything that needs to be fixed, but it will be a start. And you have to start it. What’s going to fix our democracy is you. People ask me, what are you going to do for the election? No, the question is: what are you going to do? You’re the antidote. Your participation and your spirit and your determination, not just in this election but in every subsequent election, and in the days between elections."
"There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."
"In regard to homosexuality, I must say that I believe this is an attempt to remove oneself from the present, a refusal perhaps to perpetuate the endless farce of earthly life. You see, I make love to men daily, but in the imagination. My mind is androgynous to a great extent and I hope to make it more so until I can think in terms of people, not women as opposed to men. But, in returning to the body, I see that I have been made a man, and physically in life, I choose to accept that contingency."
"Im deeply saddened by a sense that whites are still superior in this country, in some sense, that if you sit at a restaurant, theyre served before a Kenyan is served. If you go through customs, a white person is going to follow orders that "all people are to be treated the same". .."
"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."
Rumi"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi"In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge"An [hypertext] encyclopaedia will be an overall attempt by the knowledgeable, the learned societies or anyone else, to represent the state-of-the-art in their field. An encyclopaedia will be a living document, as up to date as it can be, instantly accessible at any time. It will contain carefully authored explanations and summaries of the subject, as well as computer-generated indexes of literature. A reference to a paper from the encyclopaedia conveys authority and acceptance by academic society. A measure of a paper’s standing may be conveyed by the number of links it is away from an encyclopaedia."
Tim Berners-Lee"The British intellectual tradition is empirical and liberal, the French is rationalist and aristocratic, and the German is idealist and conservative. ...In the great ontological debate between mind and matter, German philosophy comes down solidly on the side of mind. Its emphasis is intuition as opposed to reason, ideas as opposed to facts."
"To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge."