We can't rely - or no country can rely on just a single personality to carry it forward. And so what the American founding fathers understood was that institutions were built for human imperfection not human perfection.

It takes courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American policy cannot be all things to all people - or rather to all interest groups

We can't live true to our set of values unless American educational system is strong. I really believe that if we don't get that right we will not compete because we won't believe that our people can compete, and we'll turn inward. We won't lead. That will be bad for the world.

To say that people around the world deserve the same, the same life that we have in the United States, the same freedoms that we have, that seems to me, humble. I think it's humble to say that the United States, which has been given so much, should give back.

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential.

Human beings are not perfect. Their institutions are not perfect, but they have to keep trying. And America has to help people keep trying.