John F. Kerry Quotes

Strong leadership demands more than the willingness to use force. It means directing the use of the right tools at the right time for the right purpose and the right cause.

Sunni are the majority of the [Syria], 60 to 65 percent. They've been ruled by [Bashar] Assad, who represents a minority Alawite element, which is about 12, 13 percent. And because of the choices Assad made, it's very difficult to see how you resolve this without buy-in from the Sunni world.

But I can tell you what I believe: When tens of thousands of innocent souls have perished in Darfur-when 11 million children are without health insurance-when our colossal debt subjects our economic future to the whims of Asian bankers-no one can tell me that faith demands this Senate spend its time arguing over a handful of judges. No one with those priorities can use my faith to intimidate me.

When I was in Vietnam I learned a lot about the promises that soldiers make to each other. The Marines have a promise to never leave behind their dead. In this country, as citizen soldiers, we need to make the commitment to each other that we will never leave our veterans behind.

I just want to assure you that both President Bush and I have very firm alibis.

Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire.

Reduce US military presence in Iraq; and bring in neighbors.

America must always be the world's paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances.

Ask Osama bin Laden is he is better off now than he was four years ago.

I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.

We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.

We do not need more division. We certainly do not need something as complex and emotional as Vietnam reduced to simple campaign rhetoric.

From the moment I take office, I will stand up to the special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals.

Glossed over the disastrous war and its multibillion-dollar price tag and implied again that our presence in Iraq is somehow improving the situation in that chaotic and turbulent country. The Congress must stand up against Bush's plan to escalate the war.

I'm against the partial-birth abortion, but you've got to have an exception for the life of the mother and the health of the mother under the strictest test of bodily injury to the mother.

The Russians need to understand that you cannot have peace [in Syria] unless you resolve the question of Sunni buy-in.

Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.

In American elections there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates win or lose, the next morning we wake up as Americans.

It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and you can be wrong.

I'm going to be a president who believes in science.

We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night. So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.

When President Bush sees America, he sees only a military superpower. I see a moral and idealistic beacon. Mr. Bush may talk about democracy all he wants, but it is not democracy to wilfully disdain and heap scorn on world opinion. We do not command moral leadership by starting pre-emptive wars.

I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy -- make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls.

My hope is the Trump administration will approach Russia strategically, with a clear purpose of trying to find more common ground, but without giving up on fundamental values and principles that are at the core of the United States' foreign policy.

I will not stop in our efforts to hunt down and kill the terrorists.

The hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are yet to come.

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.

Nobody's interests are served by what's happening in Syria today. It's a catastrophe. It's the worst human catastrophe since World War II. And, as I said just now, it represents a failure of the entire international community to come to grips with solving it.

You can't have responsibility and you can't have us living up to our ideals unless it's based on a fairly common acceptance of truth, of what is true - what is the truth here?

It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.

And now that the Greatest Generation is getting older, I think it is the responsibility of all Americans to make sure we do our part for America's seniors. You have earned the best of America -- and we need to make sure you get the protection and health care you deserve.

At every step of the way, George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.

Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.

The Ukrainian people should not be coerced. Make no mistake: the US stands together with the Ukrainians aspiring for democracy.

I'm for ethanol, and I think it's a very important partial ingredient of the overall mix of alternative and renewable fuels we ought to commit to.

I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, you've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that.

Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman.

I'm proud of my medals. I always was proud of them.

I think as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the UN, it's a good moment to rekindle our efforts to make multilateralism work yet again. And I'm proud to say that in the Iran agreement I think we did show that it can work.

I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?

The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed 'window of vulnerability,' which we now know not to exist.

There should be a Transatlantic renaissance between the US and Europe based on shared prosperity, security, and values.

Our cause in the war on terror isn't helped when we have army officers like Lieutenant General William Boykin speaking in evangelical churches and claiming this as some sort of battle for the Christian religion. That's wrong. That's un-American.

I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president.

I can tell you, Massachusetts, fastest growing sector of our economy is clean energy and energy efficiency companies. And they're growing faster than any other sector.

I am sympathetic to developing countries’ concerns: because of our emissions it’s their crops that will disappear; because of our inaction, it’s their fields that turn to desert...

Great challenges confront our great nation. We seek to meet them by rising to the task, not by defining our country down.

When the nations of the world look upon the United States, they see a country which has achieved what they would all like to become one day. Whether it is in the field of science, art, music, agriculture, politics, economics or war, the United States is the leader.