Barack Obama quote: “In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”

“I know you didn't do this for me. You did this—you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas—that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Iowa Caucus Victory Speech, Delivered at the Iowa Democratic caucus on 3 January 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZaq-YKCnE
2008

“We know that our faith sometimes has been used as a wedge to divide us, but we also know that with a big God, with a loving and forceful God, if we unite in his name, we can finish his work on Earth. In the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. With a uniting faith, with a God powerful enough to empower us, we can take those bullets out.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2007

“And that’s the lesson of our past. That's the promise of tomorrow -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. That when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station, can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: p>Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day -- that change does not come from Washington, but to Washington; that change has always been built on our willingness, We The People, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.And that’s the lesson of our past. That's the promise of tomorrow -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. That when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station, can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.</p

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"As Much Truth As One Can Bear" in The New York Times Book Review (14 January 1962); republished in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2011), edited by Randall Kenan
Context: Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. … Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

James Baldwin book Small Great Things

Also appears in Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things
Source: In 1962 James Baldwin penned an essay titled “As Much Truth As One Can Bear” in “The New York Times Book Review”.
Context: We are the generation that must throw everything into the endeavor to remake America into what we say we want it to be. Without this endeavor, we will perish. ... Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity, to this announcement. I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington, but I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change. People who love their country can change it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Announcement of Candidacy for President of the United States. (10 February 2007) http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/10/obama.president/index.html
2007

“activists who think they are making changes in their countries are not. the people on the ground are the ones who make that #Syria”

Bassel Khartabil (1981–2015) free culture and democracy activist, Syrian political prisoner

Tweet Jan 31, 2012, 6:29AM https://twitter.com/basselsafadi/status/164354595982819329 at Twitter.com

“The country faces big challenges and we can address these challenges together with parties from different backgrounds and ideologies who share the concerns and interest as the people of Iraq.”

Raid Jahid Fahmi (1950) Iraqi politician

Interview with Al Jazeera (25 May 2018)

“And if there is one thing that he and this year’s anniversary should teach us, if there’s one lesson I hope that Malia and Sasha and young people everywhere learn from this day, it’s that with enough effort, and enough empathy, and enough perseverance, and enough courage, people who love their country can change it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President at LBJ Presidential Library Civil Rights Summit at Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas on April 10, 2014. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/10/remarks-president-lbj-presidential-library-civil-rights-summit
2014

“When people feel that they are empowered… then they can do whatever they want to do. It’s their country to change.”

Ana Brnabić (1975) Prime Minister of Serbia

Source: "National Digital Transformation: A Conversation With Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic" in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwolcott/2021/06/15/national-digital-transformation-a-conversation-with-serbias-prime-minister-ana-brnabic/?sh=429139813889 (15 June 2021)

“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”

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