quotes.weingraber.com Bill Clinton Quotes

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There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.

Let me tell you something - wait a minute. You know one thing that's wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say - my budget did more to fight AIDS than any in history, and we're having to put up with this. Tell them to let me talk. If you want to give a speech - go out there and raise your own crowd. We'll be glad to listen to you. So there were those - I'll make you a deal. I'll ignore them if you will.

Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind together.

Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face - an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress - let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children.

No one wants to get this matter behind us more than I do-except maybe all the rest of the American people.

Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land a thousand years ago our great challenge for the 21st century is to find a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges if we can go forward as One America.

A hundred years from tonight, another American President will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.

We want to live forever, and we're getting there.

You know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good-looking mummy.

Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow.

You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union.

And I think America, if we're ever going to truly defeat terror without changing the character of our own country or compromising the future of our children, has got to not only say, 'Okay, I want to shoulder my responsibilities, I want to create my share of opportunities' but we have to find a way to define the future in terms of a humanity that goes beyond our country, that goes beyond any particular race, that goes beyond any particular religion.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

What are the needs of the world? What can I do that won't be done if I don't do it?

What we have to do now is not to forget these people and places when all the cameras are not there. I think that's the most important message I can say to the American people right now.

We need a steady stream of cash. The American people have been uncommonly generous.

If ever there comes a time when everyone you vote for wins and they do everything you think they should do, there will still be a gap between what is and what ought to be.

I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes only response to pain.

Big things are expected of us, and nothing big ever came of being small.

If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.

We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.

Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference.

Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it's the time when they most need to think.

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

Globalization is not something we can hold off or turn off.. it is the economic equivalent of a force of nature - like wind or water.

We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it.

I may not have been the greatest president, but I've had the most fun eight years.

The purpose of politics is to give people tools to make the most of their lives.

Politics is not religion and we should govern on the basis of evidence, not theology.

The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth

Character is a journey, not a destination.

Keep your eyes on the prize and don't turn back.

Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.

Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless

We don't need a constitutional amendment for kids to pray.

The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.

Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us. And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.

For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.

Sometimes I feel like a fire hydrant looking at a pack of dogs.

We need to help younger people recognize their own capacity to do good, and help them discover the rewards of generosity.

If we want to invest in the prosperity of our nation, we must invest in the education of our children so that their talents may be fully employed.

When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old.

We are living in a world, where what we earn is a function of what we learn.

Just as war is freedom's cost, disagreement is freedom's privilege.

Taxing less and spending more.. it's fun in the short run, but it's a recipe for disaster.

Everybody counts, everybody deserves a chance, everybody has a responsible role to play and we all do better when we work together.

When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web. Now even my cat has its own page.

The world knows of Rosa Parks because of a single, simple act of dignity and courage that struck a lethal blow to the foundations of legal bigotry.