Quote

If people, whether they are conservative or liberal, left or right, are unwilling to compromise and engage in the democratic process, and are taking absolutist views, and demonizing opponents, then democracy will break down.

Barack Obama

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barack Obama
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: August 4
44Th U.S. President
Community Organizer
Jurist
Lawyer
Podcaster
Political Writer
Politician
Statesperson
Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital
Barack Hussein Obama II
Barack Obama II
Barack Hussein Obama
Obama
Barak Obama
Barry Obama
President Obama
President Barack Obama
BHO
Barack
Barack H. Obama
People
Taking
Demonizing
Views
Unwilling
Democracy
Engage
Break
Opponents
Whether
Liberal
Process
Compromise
Left
Conservative
Right
Democratic
Absolutist

More quotes by Barack Obama

Image
The reason I take pride for that is one of the things you worry about when you're in the bubble, and there's all this pomp and circumstance and hail to the chief is, do you lose touch with what you thought was important and what brought you here? And I'm proud that I don't think I have lost touch.
Barack Obama
Image
Reality has a way of asserting itself.
Barack Obama
Image
I can think about what [Mahatma] Gandhi said or [Martin Luther] King said about violence begetting violence, and still be true to my job by asking myself the question whenever we're confronted with a situation where some may be arguing for military action: Will this actually result in America being safer, or the most lives being saved?
Barack Obama
Image
What I want to try to do is unify the two wings of the Democratic Party. What's considered the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party - the more centrist wing of the party. I think we can craft an approach that is more American, pro-worker, pro-business, pro-growth.
Barack Obama
Image
Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in a repeat of 9/11, and those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right, and that's not simple.
Barack Obama
Image
Since I've been in the Senate, is that my work with people like Tom Coburn on opening up transparency in government, making sure that every dollar the federal government spends that's out there - that that's all posted on a searchable database on the Internet.
Barack Obama
Image
Iran is the latest expression of a deep, ancient, powerful culture that's different than ours. And we don't know how it's going to play itself out.
Barack Obama
Image
The men and women of America's homeland security apparatus do important work to protect us, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not be playing politics with that.
Barack Obama
Image
We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.
Barack Obama
Image
Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we've got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.
Barack Obama
Image
When we think about immigration, we have to understand there are folks all around the world who still see America as the land of promise. And they provide us energy, and they provide us innovation. And they start companies like Intel and Google, and we want to encourage that.
Barack Obama
Image
When you've got little kids, and you're tucking them in. When you open a door and they're in their pajamas and they're, you know, wrestling with you and asking you, you know, to read to them and stuff, [The white House] starts feeling like home pretty quick. Not to mention having a mother-in-law upstairs, and the dog, and now two.
Barack Obama
Image
To try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with the budget.
Barack Obama
Image
[Michelle Obama] was the hardest sell. And she never fully embraced being in the public spotlight, which is ironic, given how good she is.
Barack Obama
Image
If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
Barack Obama
Image
In a global economy where our economies and supply chains are deeply integrated, it's not even possible.
Barack Obama
Image
When people see opportunity, when they have a sense of control of their own destiny, then they're less vulnerable to the propaganda and twisted ideologies that have been attracting young people - particularly being turbocharged through social media.
Barack Obama
Image
We're not going to baby sit a civil war.
Barack Obama
Image
I've been saying for years, we're gonna have to spend a lot more time on cyber security.
Barack Obama
Image
Occasionally I would like the German people to give us the benefit of the doubt, given our history, as opposed to assuming the worst -- assuming that we have been consistently your strong partners and that we share a common set of values.
Barack Obama