Obama: "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."

Obama: "It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label."

Obama: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."

Obama: "My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too."

Obama: "We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn't a matter of political correctness. It's a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith."

Obama: "Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law."

Obama: "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America."

Obama: "We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense."

Obama: "I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

Obama: "In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?"

Obama: "We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential."

Obama: "[As an adolescent I was] arguing all the time, usually about me failing to abide by ... petty and arbitrary rules. I found that I could generally win these arguments."

Obama: "I'm impatient about the pace of change."

Obama: "Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable. Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make you'll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn't going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can't be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out."

Obama: "I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator."

Obama: "I see tragedy and comedy and pain and irony and all that stuff. But in the end I think life is fascinating, and I think people are more good than bad, and I think that the possibilities of progress are real."

Obama: "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."

Obama: "There are some things about being president that I still have difficulty doing. For example, faking emotion. Because I feel it is an insult to the people I'm dealing with."

Obama: "The future rewards those who press on. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on."

Obama: "We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent."

Obama: "[As President] you can't wander around. It's much harder to be surprised. You don't have those moments of serendipity. You don't bump into a friend in a restaurant you haven't seen in years. ... The loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don't get used to it - at least I don't."

Obama: "[Kanye West] is a jackass."

Obama: "In some ways, [Michelle and I] saw in each other elements that we hadn't had growing up. In Michelle I saw roots. I saw a nuclear family, neighborhood, community, continuity. In me she saw adventure, cosmopolitanism."

Obama: "Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest."

Obama: "I'm a warrior for the middle class."

Obama: "Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up."

Obama: "The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable."

Obama: "That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want."

Obama: "I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war."