5. On diplomacy with Iran: “If John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union, then surely a strong and confident America can negotiate with less powerful adversaries today. …  But let me be clear: if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it. “

4. On climate change: “… the debate is settled.  Climate change is a fact.  And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”

3. On equal pay for equal work: “Today, women make up about half our workforce.  But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.  That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. … It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a “Mad Men” episode.  This year, let’s all come together … to give every woman the opportunity she deserves.  Because I firmly believe when women succeed, America succeeds.”

2. On unemployment insurance: “[T]his Congress needs to restore the unemployment insurance you just let expire for 1.6 million people. Let me tell you why. Misty DeMars is a mother of two young boys… In May, she and her husband used their life savings to buy their first home.  A week later, budget cuts claimed the job she loved.  Last month, when their unemployment insurance was cut off, she sat down and wrote me a letter – the kind I get every day.  ’We are the face of the unemployment crisis,” she wrote.  “I am not dependent on the government. Our country depends on people like us who build careers, contribute to society, care about our neighbors. I am confident that in time I will find a job. I will pay my taxes, and we will raise our children in their own home in the community we love.  Please give us this chance.’ Congress, give these hardworking, responsible Americans that chance.”

1. After introducing us to Sergeant Cory Remsburg, a personal friend of the president going through a difficult recovery after nearly being killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, President Obama finished his address with touching words on the American spirit: “My fellow Americans, men and women like Cory remind us that America has never come easy.  Our freedom, our democracy, has never been easy.  Sometimes we stumble; we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged.  But for more than two hundred years, we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress – to create and build and expand the possibilities of individual achievement; to free other nations from tyranny and fear; to promote justice, and fairness, and equality under the law, so that the words set to paper by our founders are made real for every citizen.  …  But if we work together; if we summon what is best in us, with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast towards tomorrow – I know it’s within our reach. Believe it.”

 Check out the full speech, or read over the transcript.