Useful quotes from Barack Obama's Books

Quotes worth enumerating and understanding Americans first hand from Barrack Obama’s books

Dreams from my father

Page 13
“Organizers did not make any money ; their poverty was their integrity”

Page 106
“ It is happening an ocean away. But it is a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we know it or not. Whether we want it or not. A struggle that demands we choose sides. Not between black and white. Not between rich and poor. No – it’s a harder choice than that . It is choice between dignity and servitude . Between fairness and injustice . Between commitment and indifference. A choice between right and wrong, “

Audacity of Hope

Pages 51-52 .
“ I imagine that ( people –Democrats and Republicans ) they are waiting for politics with maturity to balance idealism with realism., to distinguish between what can and what can not be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don’t always understand the argument between right and left , conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and commonsense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.”

Page 54
“ The openness of the White House said something about our confidence as a democracy. I thought. It embodied the notion that our leaders were not so different from us; that they remained subject to laws and our collective consent.”

Page 56
“ I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring and appreciated the Founders’ wisdom in designing a system to keep power in check.

Page 58
“ Tax cuts for the wealthy to be both fiscally irresponsible and morally troubling”

My comments – in Indian context – if we tax rich exorbitently there would be no surplus money left with them to invest in industry and they are the only ones capable of doing it to generate more income. In India earlier with 100% tax liability in the highest bracket we lost the opportunity of industrialization preventing us to go global. It is counter productive.

Page 66
“ how suffocating the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties could be , with distant cousins constantly asking for favours, uncles and aunts showing up un announced. ( Americans cherish their individual freedom). We believe in the right to be left alone and are suspicious of Big Brother or noisy neighbours – who want to meddle in our business. We value self reliance , self-improvement and risk taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.”

Page 68
“ In the hands of men values can be subjected to distortion and excess. Self reliance and indiscipline can transform into selfishness and licence, ambition into greed and frantic desire to succeed at any cost.”

Page 77
“ It becomes harder and harder for the public to distinguish between honest sentiment and political stage craft.”

Page 236
“ But for the most part , traditional religious practice – and certainly religious fundamentalism – was considered incompatible with modernity, at most a refuge of the poor and uneducated from the hardship of life.”
“The old time religion was withering away, it was argued, a victim of science, higher levels of education in the general population, and the marvel of technology

Page 244
“—confirmed my belief in the capacity of ordinary people to do extraordinary things.”:

Page 253
“ Liberalism teaches us to be tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs , so long as their beliefs donot cause any one harm or impinge on another’s right to believe differently. So long as the communities are content to keep to themselves and faith is neatly confined as a matter of individual conscience, such tolerance is not tested.
“But religion is rarely practiced in isolation, organized religion, at least, is a very public affair. They may feel that a secular state provides values that directly offend their belief. They want the larger society to validate and reinforce their views.

Page 259
“ In a pluralistic democracy religious values must be subject to argument and amenable to reason.”
“ Almost by definition, faith and reason operate in different domains and involve different paths to discerning truth. Reason – and – science – involve the accumulation of knowledge based on realities that we all can apprehend. Religion by contrast, is based on truths that are not provable through ordinary human understanding – The belief in things not seen.”
“ Politics (unlike science ) involves compromise, the art of possible. At some fundamental level religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. To base ones life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, to have our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

Page 267
“ ---body’s capacity to inflict pain on itself”

Page 230
“—in many ways Indonesia serves as a useful metaphor for the world beyond our borders – a world in which globalization and sectarianism, poverty and plenty modernity and antiquity constantly collide.”

Page 372
President Kennedy, “—we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves.---not because we seek their votes but because it is right. If a free society can not help the many who are poor , it can not save the few who are rich.” We will have to align our politics to help reduce the sphere of insecurity, poverty and the global order that has served us so well.”

Page 273
“ No person, in any culture, likes to be bullied. No person likes living in fear because he or her ideas are different. No body likes being poor or hungry and no body likes to live under an economy system in which the fruits of his or her labour go perpetually unrewarded. The system of free markets and liberal democracy that now characterizes most of the developed world may be flawed ; it may all too often reflect the interest of the powerful over the powerless. But the system is constantly subject to change and improvement – and it is precisely this openness to change that market based liberal economies offer people around the world their best chances at a better life.”

Page 875
“ In 1941 FDR said he looked forward to a world founded upon four eternal freedoms; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Last two freedoms are prerequisite for all others.
For people living on two dollars a day , an election is at best a means , not an end;a starting point , not deliverance.
--- 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..”

Page 386
“ It was a difficult transitional period in my life. Privately I worried that it represented the abandonment of my youthful ideals, a concession to the hard realities of money and power – the world as it is rather than the world as it should be. “