Our approach [to global security] has changed by the way we've elevated development. The biggest lesson is to recognize global responsibility.

In foreign policy, even if you hold high office, you can't be sure what the effects will be of the things you do.

In Sarajevo and in Syria, these are societies - in Bosnia, in Serbia, in Kosovo, in Syria - where ethnicities live side by side and intermarry for long periods of time until it becomes valuable to exploit the division. And yes, the division's there because you can always revert back to history, you can always inflame it, but it is manipulated for political ends.

If we're going to have better choices for women, we've got to have better choices for men.

We all love narratives where we're the captain of our boat, and Americans love them more than anybody else.

The false pride of perennial celebration, of wearing flag lapel pins while betraying the values that the flag stands for, is like the self-esteem curriculum for toddlers, where everything is praised and no achievement ultimately has meaning.

When I used to teach civil procedure as a law professor, I would begin the year by telling my students that “civil procedure is the etiquette of ritualized battle.” The phrase, which did not originate with me, captured the point that peaceful, developed societies resolve disputes by law rather than by force.