"I'm [often] reminded of this image. It's the image of young Americans - teenagers and college kids not much older than you... watching the Civil Rights Movement unfold before them on their television sets. I imagine... they... probably saw... the footage of innocent people being beaten within an inch of their lives...
"Instinctively, they knew that it was safer... to watch the movement from afar. But somewhere in their hearts, they also understood... that what was happening was wrong; and that they had an obligation to make it right. And so when the buses pulled up for a Freedom Ride down South, they got on. And they rode... And they changed the world...
"As Robert F. Kennedy once told a crowd of South Africans no older than you, "The world demands... a predominance of courage over timidity..."
Barack Obama discussing the Civil Rights protests at the Campus Progress Annual Conference - July 12, 2006
"It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling."
Barack Obama discussing the rigged election results in Iran and the ensuing protests in which scores of Iranians have been beaten and killed - June 16, 2009
"I imagine... they... probably saw... the footage of innocent people being beaten within an inch of their lives... Instinctively, they knew that it was safer... to watch the movement from afar. But somewhere in their hearts, they also understood... that what was happening was wrong; and that they had an obligation to make it right......."
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