John F. Kerry Quotes

Palestinians need to stop the incitement. They need to stop that kind of activity. But at the same time, there is a need to see the broader conflict here and understand that there has to be some kind of ultimately negotiated political track that's going to resolve the difference between Palestinians and Israelis.

I think that our own crisis of democracy is in its own way affecting our ability to leverage in the same way that we used to in the world.

I don't think losing 3 million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having 2 million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools and not funding No Child Left Behind represents a vision.

You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service.

We achieved a deal with the Russians that didn't wind up in two days of strikes that would have sent a, quote, "message," but would not have removed the weapons. We struck a deal to get all of the declared weapons out of Syria. Never before in a conflict has that ever happened, that during the conflict weapons of mass destruction are taken out of the zone of conflict. And thank God we did that, because if we hadn't done that, today ISIL would have those chemical weapons in large parts of the country.

Patriots don't go to Russia. They don't seek asylum in Cuba. They don't seek asylum in Venezuela. They fight their cause here. Edward Snowden is a coward. He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.

What we do right now, today, matters.

America is the one that has led the effort to strengthen NATO and strengthen the front-line states against Russia's pressures.

Those localized efforts take a long time and they don't deal with the larger issue of ISIL and the question of what you're going to do to really have a solution here. We have to save Syria.

When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.

And if [Vladimir Putin] does fight ISIL alone, how does it work out for Russia to have sided with Assad, sided with Iran, sided with Hizballah, when they're trying to reach out to the rest of the Sunni world in the region? That's not a good equation for Russia.

[Bashar] Assad himself has said on several occasions recently that if the people of Syria don't believe I should be there in the future, then I would step - I would leave. He has said it. He has, on occasion, hinted that he wants a political settlement of one kind or another. I think it's up to his supporters, his strongest supporters, to make it clear to him that if you're going to save Syria, Assad has made a set of choices - barrel bombing children, gassing his people, torturing his people, engaging in starvation as a tactic of war.

The future belongs to freedom, not to fear.

No one is going to question my commitment to the defence of our nation. I don't know what it is these Republicans, who didn't serve in any war, have against those of us who are Democrats who did.

If you want to be a Jewish state and you want to remain a democracy, you have to have a two-state solution.

These guys [Republicans] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen.

The world has to save Syria. I mean, this has dramatic implications for the entire region, globally.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

We spent a fair amount of time on Ukraine. And I think there's a path that we discussed that we will follow up on in order to try to resolve some of the outstanding issues in order to fully implement Minsk.

I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision.

Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President.

The measurement in this race is not where you come from, it is "what do you fight for."

Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it's too often the art of the probable - tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination.

I supported Israel 100 percent as a senator for 28 years and I've supported it 100 percent as Secretary of State.

We can't change minds without knowing what's in them.

I think that too far, too much, to a greater degree than is anywhere near appropriate, America and our politics are being governed by more and more powerful interests, by fewer and fewer people in the sense of the amount of money that has controlled access and other kinds of things.

I think the United States is still the indispensable force for positive change and for rule of law and for order and structure.

If we don't go far enough fast enough, the damage we inflict could take centuries to undo - if it can be undone at all.

I met with many of - a number of [Syrian] refugees in Berlin the other day, and I was struck by how educated, intelligent, and patriotic they are. They want to go back. They love their country. And there are so many of them still in Jordan and in refugee camps in Lebanon and in Turkey, that if you could create the climate within which they could begin to come back, I believe there is such a history of secularism within Syria, even tolerance within Syria, that if we can deal with ISIL, yes. That's the key. And with ISIL there, not a chance.

I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.

We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts.

I think the world is safer without Iran with a nuclear weapon. The world has got the potential to be safer if we fully implement the Paris agreement.

America deserves a real discussion about real policy.

We are being Americans when we hold our government to account. We are being false to our troops when we send them to a needless war, betraying their trust when we shortchange them on protective equipment, and cheating them when we silently cut their benefits.

I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional America is.

I think there has been an exaggeration [of the terrorist threat].

Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama.

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room. It's the most bizarre part of this entire thing.

Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

The big hang-up was George Bush wanted to get life lines, you know, so he could call somebody.

You cannot bring peace in Syria as long as [Bashar] Assad is, in fact, there.

I do think that it's really important for leaders of countries to be very clear and careful in the statements they make because their words are weighed extremely carefully by other countries, and you have to create a continuity of seriousness and of credibility in order to be able to be taken seriously and get things done.

President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second.

I want to start by saying something nice about President Bush. Of all the presidents we've had with the last name of Bush, his economic plan ranks in the top two.

I want to fully fund education, No Child Left Behind, special-needs education. And that's how we're going to be more competitive, by making sure our kids are graduating from school and college.

As President, I will not be the last to know what is going on in my command.