Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top al-Qaida leaders who've been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.

On the spectrum of successful politicians, I'm not introverted the way some have been.

For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda.

Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.

Together we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

The American story has never been about things coming easy. It has been about rising to the moment when the moment is hard. About rejecting panicked division for purposeful unity. About seeing a mountaintop from the deepest valley. That is why we remember that some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American came from a president who took office in a time of turmoil: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.