Family

The most traditionally successful people I know were divorced and they told me sacrificing their families wasn't worth it. Hold your children up high as your greatest inventions because they are.

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, black young women — head off to school, waving goodbye to their father, the President of the United States.

I know that when I am on my deathbed someday, I will not be thinking about any particular legislation I passed; I will not be thinking about a policy I promoted; I will not be thinking about the Nobel Prize I received. I will be thinking about that walk I took with my daughters.

Education does begin in the home, not in the schools. In the first weeks of life, there comes a moment when a child hears its mother's voice and knows that it's his mother. At that point, the brain shuts out all other languages and only listens to the mother's language. At that moment, education begins.