William J. Clinton's Quotes

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.

I personally don't believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending, either one, until we get this economy off the ground. I'll pay more, but it won't solve the problem.

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

If you think the President was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008.

One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.

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.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me now. No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.

President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

President Obama's record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

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.

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.

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

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

When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.

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 am in support of the NRA position on gun control.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle.

Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little.

The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.

Well, first of all, I think that a lot of the voters who are voting for the tea party candidates have really good impulses. That is, they believe that for years and years and years, the people with wealth and power or government power have done well and ordinary people have not. That's true.

Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.

Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents.

Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It's fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people.

We must teach our children to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.

In the new economy, information, education, and motivation are everything.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

I like the job. That's what I'll miss the most... I'm not sure anybody ever liked this as much as I've liked it.

It's heartbreaking to see so many people trapped in a web of enforced idleness, deep debt, and gnawing self-doubt.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats.

My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in. If you want a you're on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities - a 'we're all in it together' society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

Part of our essential humanity is paying respect to what God gave us and what will be here a long time after we're gone.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.