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Seven of Barack Obama’s best quotes

Former US president is renowned for his oratory

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By The Week Staff

last updated 3 August 2018

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Barack Obama turns 57 tomorrow - and has marked his birthday week with a return to politics.

Midterm elections 2018: why they are important for the world What are the Obamas doing now? Barack Obama: Coolest presidential moments caught on video

After keeping a fairly low profile since leaving the White House, the former US president has announced his endorsements of 81 Democratic candidates in the nation’s midterm elections later this year.

Obama said in a typically eloquent statement on Wednesday that he was “proud to endorse such a wide and impressive array of Democratic candidates - leaders as diverse, patriotic, and big-hearted as the America they’re running to represent”.

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Even putting aside party affiliations, Obama cuts a very different figure to his successor in tone and temperament, as NBC News noted when Donald Trump took office in January 2017.

“It’s No-Drama Obama vs. Drama-All-The-Time Trump,” said the news site. “The nation’s first African-American president vs. the man who led the so-called birther campaign against him. ‘Yes We Can’ vs. ‘Make America Great Again’.”

Nowhere is this difference more apparent than in their speaking styles. “Barack Obama was, as president, eloquent,” says The Conversation. “His language was sophisticated. He spoke in measured tones and advanced informed, reasoned dialogue.”

Click on the gallery above to see seven of his greatest quotes.

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