My guiding principle as president has been to try to do the right thing even when it's not politically convenient.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

A big part of dealing with depression is realizing that you are in control of your own happiness.

Q: What is wrong with the world?A: Everybody pays attention to pictures of things. Nobody pays attention to things themselves.

I basically have a very positive philosophy of life, because I don't feel I have anything to lose. Most things are going to turn out okay.

Blacks have a special history, since they were enslaved and were here as early as the first Americans. I hate to sound like a liberal but these are facts. That makes blacks a special group.

I love life, I love people and I love sharing, so I would say that I'm romantic.

There is no method except yourself.

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.

My best life advice:Take the high road.No matter how much stress, or strain, or consternation you are facing, take the high road.You will never regret it.

I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its three or four million people would enjoy.