“You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits, but I hope you don't. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although I believe you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, although I do believe you have that debt. It's because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition.”

— Barack Obama

Wesleyan Graduation Ceremony, Middletown, Connecticut (25 May 2008) http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM42_remarks_of_obama.pdf <br class="br">2008

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits, but I hope you d…" by Barack Obama?

Barack Obama1158

44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

“I play a lot of those parts, and it's a chicken-and-egg thing. I don't know whether you get scary because you play those parts or did you get those parts because you were scary? But I do believe that there's a very close connection to what's scary and what's funny. So I think if you have the ability to do one, you might have the ability to do the other.”

Christopher Walken (1943) American actor

The Toronto Star staff (July 20, 2007) "How Walken makes us laugh in fear", The Toronto Star, p. E01.

“I was foolish because I believed in you. You are a fool because you believe in yourself!”

J. California Cooper (1931–2014) American playwright, novelist. short story writer

Source: In Search of Satisfaction

“I’m so sorry that I wasted your time because you really do mean a lot to me and I hope you have a very nice life because I really think you deserve it. I really do. I hope you do, too. Okay, then. Goodbye.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.”

George MacDonald book The Princess and the Goblin

Source: The Princess and the Goblin

“Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

“I don't think, sir, that you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Jane to Mr. Rochester (Ch. 14)
Jane Eyre (1847)

“I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. … There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want.”

Charlize Theron (1975) film actress and producer, former fashion model

Reader's Digest.com interview http://www.rd.com/face-to-face-with-charlize-theron/article18057.html <br class="br">Context: I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. … There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want. And that meant "Be responsible with this little motorcycle that we're going to give you, because you're only five. If you're not, you're going to hurt yourself" -- which I did. My mom wasn't like, "Poor baby." She was like, "You do wheelies. That's what's going to happen." My mom's philosophy was, "If you get yourself in trouble, you've got to get yourself out of trouble."

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“If you listen carefully, in what most definitely must be called Gospel you yourself will hear also rigorousness. For example, what Jesus says to the centurion from Capernaum, “If we will apply these words to ourselves, we are obliged to say, “Be it done for you as you believe; if you have faith unto salvation, then you will be saved.” (Matthew 8:13) How lenient, how merciful! But is it also certain, then, that I have faith-I surely cannot summarily transfer to myself the fact that the centurion believed, as if I had faith because the centurion had it. Let us suppose that someone asked Christianity, “Is it also certain, then, that I have faith?” Christianity would answer, “Be it done for you as you believe.””

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Works of Love (1847), p. 378

“If you believe yourself unfortunate because you have loved and lost, perish the thought. One who has loved truly, can never lose entirely.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Barack Obama1158

Related quotes

Related topics