Barack Obama

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

America isn't Congress. America isn't Washington. America is the striving immigrant who starts a business, or the mom who works two low-wage jobs to give her kid a better life. America is the union leader and the CEO who put aside their differences to make the economy stronger.

There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.

Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. As a nuclear power - as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon - the United States has a moral responsibility to act.

America thrived in the 20th century because we made high school free. We sent a generation to college. We cultivated the most educated workforce in the world.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I'm not who I say I am when it comes to my faith - something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.