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The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Book by Barack Obama · 44 quotes · Politics, People, Ifs

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The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream Quotes

“Whenever I write a letter to a family who has lost a loved one in Iraq, or read an email from a constituent who has dropped out of college because her student aid has been cut, I'm reminded that the actions of those in power have enormous consequences--a price that they themselves almost never have to pay.”

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“Any strategy to reduce intergenerational poverty has to be centered on work, not welfare--not only because work provides independence and income but also because work provides order, structure, dignity, and opportunities for growth in people's lives.”

PeopleOrderOpportunityGrowthPovertyDignityIndependenceStrategyStructureIncomeWelfare
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“I might have arguments with the size of Reagan's military buildup, but given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do. Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our borders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West--in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.”

IfsMenGivingCountryMightGivenEasyMilitaryDangerWallPrideHealthyArgumentVoteWestSizeAppreciationDuesEastOur CountryBordersThings To DoStayingOld ManAfghanistanSovietSensibleQuarrelsInvasionBerlinInsistenceEast And WestBerlin WallTumblingArmed ServicesTumbling Down
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“Globalization makes our economy, our health, and our security all captive to events on the other side of the world. And no other nation on earth has a greater capacity to shape that global system, or to build consensus around a new set of international rules that expand the zones of freedom, personal safety, and economic well-being. Like it or not, if we want to make America more secure, we are going to have to help make the world more secure.”

IfsWorldWantWellsHelpingEarthAmericaNationsSidesEconomyGreaterEconomicSecurityEventsShapesCapacitySafetyInternationalSecureWell BeingZoneGlobalizationConsensusCaptivesPersonal Safety
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“At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitment may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”

IfsMayDoeWould BeLevelsImpossibleDangerousPolicyCommitmentConsequenceFundamentalsExpectedCompromiseFollowersSublimeDangerous ThingsUncompromisingPolicy Making
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“And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth.”

HelpingJobsLawOpportunityNationsWealthWhiteBalanceTaxesTrainingLaborWorkersMinoritiesDistributionLiving WageLabor Laws
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“The conservative revolution that Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight - that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie - contained a good deal of truth.”

StatesDealsGrowingEconomicPolicyRevolutionDemocraticConservativeInsightWelfareObsessedMakersPieComplacentWelfare StatePolicy MakersTraction
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“another tradition to politics, a tradition (of politics) that stretched from the days of the country’s founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.”

PeopleIfsBelieveIdeasCountryDoneEnoughProblemMightTogetherSimpleGreaterRightsMovementGloryTraditionSolveMeaningfulCivil RightsStakesPropositionsFoundingCivil Rights MovementSimple Ideas
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“We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expressions of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them,and drives us further apart.”

PeopleThinkingBelieveFaithUnderstandingReligiousFansExpressionSourceComfortConflictLandscapeTensionDivisionExploitsSowing
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“I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.”

MenWarSometimesFactsCoursesNextWonderProgressStageCapableMen And WomenCyclesDeclineAscent
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“For half of the world's population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an "electocracy" than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life--food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power.”

PeopleWorldWayMeanChildrenTwoEndsCareThreeAbilityHalfViolenceElementsElectionDollarsEndureStartingPopulationCorruptionBillionsAround The WorldHealth CareDecentShelterElectricityArbitraryLiving OnDeliveranceStarting PointDecent Life
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“Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.”

MeanPastFaithAcceptingDoubtAcceptanceGoes OnLetting GoProductivityAcceptedMoving ForwardMoving OnHave FaithMoving InMoved OnLife Goes OnLetting You GoLetting Go And Moving OnLiving In The PastMoving Forward In LifeJust Let GoMoving On In LifeBustleTime To Move OnJust Move OnCan't Let GoMoving UpInspirational Moving OnAfter Break UpDon't Let GoHe Doesn't CareForward In LifeLife Moves OnMoving On LoveInspirational Moving ForwardMoving On After BreakupInspirational DivorceLove And Letting GoAudacity Of HopeDon't Care AnymoreI Moved OnYou Let Me GoDon't Love You AnymoreI Don't Love You Anymore
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“On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”

YearsMightMotherChurchChristianityIslamAncientBuddhistChineseTemplesCelebrationDragNew YearSiteEasterHusseinMind BlowingBurialChristmas DayShrinesHawaiiansChristianity And IslamAudacity Of Hope
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“I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided.”

ChristianSupportPossibilityGayObligationOfficialsGay MarriageGay RightsMisguidedElected OfficialsSupport Gay Marriage
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“I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face.”

WayFacesPoliticalLosesChallengesCasesFindingsCurrentsConvincedDebatePursuitDumbPurityNew WaysSheerOrthodoxyIdeologicalAccuracyPredictabilityChallenges We FacePolitical Debates
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“We have no authoritative figure, no Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow whom we all listen to and trust to sort out contradictory claims. Instead, the media is splintered into a thousand fragments, each with its own version of reality, each claiming the loyalty of a splintered nation.”

FactsUnited StatesMediaNewsWorld PoliticsWorld NewsWalter Cronkite
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“There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal story that people tell about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the brilliant, prickly, and iconoclastic late senator from New York. Apparently, Moynihan was in a heated argument with one of his colleagues over an issue, and the other senator, sensing he was on the losing side of the argument, blurted out: 'Well, you may disagree with me, Pat, I'm entitled to my own opinion." To which Moynihan frostily replied, "You are entitled to you own opinion, but you are not entitled to you own facts.”

FactsPoliticsOpinionArgumentLogic
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“With a certain talent for rhetoric, as well as an absolute certainty about the merits of my own views, I found that I could generally win these arguments, in the narrow sense of leaving my grandfather flustered, angry, and sounding unreasonable. But at some point, perhaps in my senior year, such victories started to feel less satisfying. I started thinking about the struggles and disappointments he had seen in his life. I started to appreciate his need to feel respected in his own home. I realized that abiding by his rules would cost me little, but to him it would mean a lot. I recognized that sometimes he really did have a point, and that in insisting on getting my own way all the time, without regard to his feelings or needs, I was in some way diminishing myself.”

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“I started thinking about the struggles and disappointments he had seen in his life. I started to appreciate his need to feel respected in his own home. I realized that abiding by his rules would cost me little, but for him it would mean a lot. I recognized that sometimes he really did have a point, and that in insisting on getting my own way all the time, without regard to his feeling s or needs, I was in some way diminishing myself.”

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“By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time.”

YoungRichSafeFamousAmericanThin
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“faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts... [you] still experience the same greed, resentment, lust, and anger that everyone else experienced... the lines between sinner and saved [are] more fluid; the sins of those who come to church are not so different from the sins of those who don't... You [need] to come to church precisely because you [are] of this world, not apart from it; rich, poor, sinner, saved you [need] to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away... that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world...”

FaithPolitics
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“Implicit … in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad. ... A rejection of absolutism, in all its forms, may sometimes slip into moral relativism or even nihilism, an erosion of values that hold society together…”

LibertyTyrannyTheologyIdeologyNihilismAbsolute TruthMoral Relativism
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“A rejection of absolutism, in all its forms, may sometimes slip into moral relativism or even nihilism, an erosion of values that hold society together, but for most of our history it has encouraged the very process of information gathering, analysis, argument, and persuasion which allows us to make better, if not perfect, choices – not only about the means to our ends, but also the ends themselves.”

NihilismAbsolutismMoral Relativism
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“At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”

ReligionPolitics
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“The absence of even rough agreement on the facts puts every opinion on equal footing and therefore eliminates the basis for thoughtful compromise. It rewards not those who are right, but those - like the White House press office - who can make their arguments most loudly, most frequently, most obstinately, and with the best backdrop.”

PoliticsOpinionUnited StatesMediaNewsArgumentCompromiseWhite HouseOpinionsBarack ObamaPress
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