Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

I think that his [Obama's] task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created.

Let me make my point about Vietnam. When the Nixon initiation came into office, there were 550,000 Americans in combat. And ending the war was not a question of turning off a television channel. And so, debating on how we got there and what judgments were made was not going to help us.

Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.

I do not know what will happen in China politically. I do know that it is impossible to maintain the communist system or probably even a strict one-party system when the economy becomes so pluralistic. Now, what form that takes and what institutions will evolve, I do not have a clear view about. I do not think the United States, as a general principle, ought to intervene in this.

We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.

Even paranoid people have enemies.