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That’s precisely what the founders left us: the power to adapt to changing times. They left us the keys to a system of self-government – the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone.

— Barack Obama Commencement Address at Ohio State University (2013)

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Government

More quotes by Barack Obama

My view is that this is the beginning, not the end, of what is going to be a journey that takes some time.

We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war.

But he understood from hard-earned experience that true security comes through making peace with your neighbors.

The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.

Don’t shortchange the future, because of fear in the present.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Barack Obama (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.