America's security and prosperity didn't work unless other nations were also secure, and prosperous. There had to be something in it for them, so we weren't looking simply to grab territory, or widen our sphere of influence, or anything like that. We wanted to make the world a better place, and get very rich in the process.

Sanctions are a strong and agreed element of the West's response to Russia's aggression. It is puzzling to me that there is so much skepticism about the sanctions. I don't understand it.

They [Russians] are the adversary, they - we`re the adversary they love to hate.

The Russian myth that they broadcast to the world, and have their various surrogates in the West repeat, is that somehow the West took advantage of them, that we were mean to them. That writes out of history everything Strobe Talbott and Bill Clinton tried to do with Boris Yeltsin. Strobe Talbott leaned forward doing everything he could to help the Russians, and frankly, I have little patience for the notion that we gave them nothing but bad advice.

It was my honor to have done what I could do to help. I learned to never underestimate the possibility of change, that values have power and that time and patience can pay off, especially if you`re serious about your objectives.

No great power is ever satisfied with its sphere of influence. They never are.

Lincoln is quoted more often than he's understood, and he understood that the founding principle of our nation is, in fact, the Declaration of Independence.