#tru

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#awards #books #degrees #encouragement #encouraging

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. ↗

— Barack Obama

#asks #because #buck #certain #focusing

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost. ↗

— Barack Obama

#common #else #exists #government #job

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction. ↗

— Barack Obama

#compass #deadly #direction #engaged #exercising

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions. ↗

— Barack Obama

#actions #around #best #best intentions #country

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. ↗

— Barack Obama

#active #avoid #being #black #carefully

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I'm going to press on for equality. I'm going to press on for the sake of our children. I'm going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I am going to press on. ↗

— Barack Obama

#children #complain #determination #equality #families

But if you - if what - the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that. ↗

— Barack Obama

#care #consequence #costs #getting #going

I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you're sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me - so am I. ↗

— Barack Obama

#am #approve #avalanche #become #believe

My task over the last two years hasn't just been to stop the bleeding. My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the structural problems in the economy that have prevented more Googles from being created. ↗

— Barack Obama

#also #been #being #bleeding #created