William J. Clinton Quotes

To realize the full possibilities of this economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, and economies and cultures: globalization. It's the central reality of our time.

Nothing we do in this great capital can change the fact that factories or information can flash across the world, that people can move money around in the blink of an eye... Nothing can change the fact that technology can be adopted, once created, by people all across the world and then rapidly adapted in new and different ways by people who have a little different take on the way that technology works.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

There's this whole problem of trafficking, which has gotten worse in the economic downturn, which disproportionately affects young women, but also affects some young men who are sold into bondage, into basically servitude for indebted work that they can often never escape from.

I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

Without question, bicycling is an efficient, economical and environmentally sound form of transportation and recreation. Bicycling is a great activity for families, recreational riders and commuters. Hillary, Chelsea and I have bicycles.

I haven't eaten at a McDonald's since I became President.

I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that revealed things. If there were, they were concealed from me too. And if there were, well I wouldn't be the first American president that underlings have lied to, or that career bureaucrats have waited out. But there may be some career person sitting around somewhere, hiding these dark secrets, even from elected presidents. But if so, they successfully eluded me...and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I did (chuckling) try to find out.

When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right.

We must all be profoundly grateful for the magnificent achievements of our forbearers in this century. Yet perhaps in the daily press of events, in the clash of controversy, we don't see our own time for what it truly is - a new dawn for America.

I am fascinated by this partnership between Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. It's magic and I love it.

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.

Success is not the measure of a man but a triumph over those who choose to hold him back.

Talk to people about what our real choices are... Our way works better... Stick with us, keep talking and think how much better it will be if we keep going forward together.

I think the idea of moving to a cleaner energy future and doing more energy efficiency makes smart sense.

I take full responsability...for what we did. It was the right thing to do.

...Nixon's subversion [of the consititution] consisted of: One presidental lie; one invocation of presidental privilege, and zero criminal offences.

Only the police should have handguns.

The more children see of violence, the more numb they are to the deadly consequences of violence. Now, video games like 'Mortal Kombat,' 'Killer Instinct,' and 'Doom,' the very game played obsessively by the two young men who ended so many lives in Littleton, make our children more active participants in simulated violence.

When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama Administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20%. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform's work requirement is just not true.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time - never. These allegations are false.

The stimulus is our bridge over troubled waters. And if it's invested well, it'll generate a lot of economic growth, and we'll get quite a bit of the revenues back.

[My mom] had this amazing attitude in the face of everything, including when she got cancer.

On Earth Day I made a commitment to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000. And I asked for a blueprint on how to achieve this goal. In concert with all other nations, we simply must halt global warming. It is a threat to our health, to our ecology, and to our economy. I know that the precise magnitude and patterns of climate change cannot be fully predicted. But global warming clearly is a growing, long-term threat with profound consequences. And make no mistake about it, it will take decades to reverse.

Let's adopt some short-term strategies to get growth going and then let's have a long-term debt reduction package. That's what I think we should do and I think it will work.

These dilemmas present perhaps the most enduring conundrum of human history: can people derive their identity primarily by positive association or does life's meaning also require negative comparison to others?

With almost no time to decide, they [your loved ones] gave the entire country an incalculable gift. They saved the capitol from attack. They saved God knows how many lives. They saved the terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the center of American government. And they did it as citizens. They allowed us to survive as a country that could fight terror and still maintain liberty and still welcome people from all over the world from every religion and race and culture as long as they shared our values, because ­ordinary people given no time at all to decide did the right thing.

We know that progress is not inevitable. But neither was victory upon these beaches. Now, as then, the inner voice tells us to stand up and move forward. Now, as then, free people must choose.

In the emerging global economy, everything is mobile: capital, factories, even entire industries. The only resource that's really rooted in a nation--and the ultimate source of all its wealth--is its people.

If you are focusing your anger at government, you are focusing your anger at all of us. Government is just a personification of this country.

I will never let Israel down.

We have a unique opportunity to unite America, urban and rural, coastal and midwestern, red and blue, under the banner of a truly unifying national effort. We can start right now.

The Information Age is, first and foremost, an education age, in which education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime. Last year, from this podium, I said that education has to be our highest priority. I have something to say to every family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college.... Because of the things that have been done, we can make college as universal in the 21st century as high school is today. And, my friends, that will change the face and future of America.

It might suprise you to know I think I raised them too much, too

Nobody is right all the time and even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I made a big mistake. It is indefensible and I am sorry.

Hope I lived up to my reputation for being slick.

If you voluntarily quit in the face of adversity, you'll wonder about it for the rest of your life.

Over the past 7 years, we've tried to modernize the economy, and today what we're doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated walls, and granting banks significant new authority.

The Constitution is a radical document... it is the job of the government to rein in people's rights.

We should not let our response to the people who disagree with us be dictated by what they say about us or even how they treat people we care for. There has to be a chance that we can find love.

If we have the right preventive and primary care, if we start charging for comprehensive care in the chronic cases, 10 percent of the cases take up two-thirds of the medical expenses, and if we do more on problems like childhood obesity, that we can, to use the parlance that's popular in Washington, bend the cost curve and eventually reconcile this so our costs will be closer to our competitors and so we can cover everybody.

When you're a former president, you have much less power, but you have a lifetime of experience and contacts and if you've got the energy, you can bring influence to bear on a small but still fairly substantial number of things where you can concentrate on it because you don't have to change the subject when you wake up in the morning and there's something else in the newspaper.

I want American Dream growth - lots of new businesses, well-paying jobs, and American leadership in new industries, like clean energy and biotechnology.

Nothing big ever came from being small.

It is dangerously destabilizing to have half the world on the cutting edge of technology while the other half struggles on the bare edge of survival.

If we disagree and I think I'm right, I just go ahead and do what I think is right. And then she tells me, 'I told you so.'