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.

We did really well for a generation after 1989 and the fall of communism. Our liberal values expanded in the world, our prosperity expanded.

The Russians are using the tools at their disposal to weaken Western solidarity, to create doubt, to support nationalist parties, just as the old Soviets supported leftist parties. We need a united Western response to this multi-pronged threat.

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.

John Kerry tried to work with the Russians on Syria, and the man was honorable, because he was trying to do the right thing, and frankly, playing a very weak hand, a hand that was weak not because of him, okay. He did the best he could, but I will say this to his enormous credit: he never offered a dirty deal. You can have Ukraine if you only help us out on Syria. Never - he never did that.

There are a lot of policies that don't work out that are nevertheless worth doing.

The sense the great democracies of the world - Europe, the United States, Japan, others - are going to set the agenda for the world. [Russians] want to bring that down.