“Yes, in our world, old thinking can be a stubborn thing. That's one of the reasons why we need term limits -- old people think old ways. […] The old ways can be stubborn. But I believe the human heart is stronger. I believe hearts can change. I believe minds can open. That’s how change happens. That’s how societies move forward. It's not always a straight line -- step by halting step -- sometimes you go forward, you move back a little bit. But I believe we are marching, we are pointing towards ideals of justice and equality.”
2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
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Barack Obama1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961Related quotes
Boris Tadić (1958) Serbian politician, President of Serbia 2004–2012
http://www.predsednik.yu/mwc/default.asp?c=101500&g=20060904151245&lng=eng&hs1=1
At the presidential inauguration ceremony.
Paul Churchland (1942) Canadian philosopher
quoted in Larissa MacFarquhar, "Two heads: A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem", The New Yorker (2007)
Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist
Just the Way You Are.
Song lyrics, The Stranger (1977)
Nancy Rabalais Marine biologist
Source: The "dead zone" of the Gulf of Mexico https://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_rabalais_the_dead_zone_of_the_gulf_of_mexico (November 2017)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Remarks to the National Council of La Raza (25 July 2011) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/remarks-president-national-council-la-raza <br class="br">2011
Reinhold Niebuhr book Moral Man and Immoral Society
Source: Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), p.221
Context: The naïve faith of the proletarian is the faith of the man of action. Rationality belongs to the cool observers. There is of course an element of illusion in the faith of the proletarian, as there is in all faith. But it is a necessary illusion, without which some truth is obscured. The inertia of society is so stubborn that no one will move against it, if he cannot believe that it can be more easily overcome than is actually the case.