Bill Clinton Quotes

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

In other words, our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. There's a big difference. You can have a philosophy that tends to be liberal or conservative but still be open to evidence, experience, and argument. That enables people with honest differences to find practical, principled compromise. On the other hand, fervent insistence on an ideology makes evidence, experience, and arguments irrelevant: If you possess the absolute truth, those who disagree are by definition wrong, and evidence of success or failure is irrelevant. There is nothing to learn from the experience of other countries. Respectful arguments are a waste of time. Compromise is weakness. And if your policies fail, you don't abandon them; instead, you double down, asserting that they would have worked if only they had been carried to their logical extreme.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman

If one candidate is appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you'd better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope!

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.

A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

I have been assaulted by cleverness on all fronts.

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

Being President is like being the groundskeeper in a cemetery: there are a lot of people under you, but none of them are listening.

This is a practical country. we have ideals, we have philosophies. But, the problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence.

His knowledge of war has fed a passion for peace.

Obama doesn't know how to be President. He doesn't know how the world works. He's incompetent. He's an amateur!

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 by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements can 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 the only response to pain.

Perhaps most important, I learned that everyone has a story – of dreams and nightmares, hope and heartache, love and loss, courage and fear, sacrifice and selfishness. All my life I've been interested in other people's stories. I wanted to know them, understand them, feel them. When I grew up into politics, I always felt the main point of my work was to people a chance to have better stories. - Page 15, Paragraph 5, 'My Life' by Bill Clinton. –Hard cover version-

Ach bloodletting hastens the next, and as the value of human life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the unimaginable becomes more conceivable.

People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

That depends on what your definition of 'is' is.

We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have not done so; instead, we have drifted. And that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.

From Bill Clinton speech-
People are more impressed by the power of our example rather than the example of our power ...

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

The antigovernment paradigm blinds us to possibilities that lie outside its ideological litmus tests and prevents us from creating new networks of cooperation that can restore economic growth, bring economic opportunity to more people and places, and increase our ability to lead the world to a better future.

If you want to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat.

The idea that power was an end in itself, rather than a means to provide the security and opportunity necessary for the pursuit of happiness, seemed to him stupid and self-defeating." (about Senator Fulbright)

Some day we hope to liberate every man on earth from the tendency as old as human history to identify our strength and manhood with the ability to control the lives, limit the chances, and doom the dreams of women and girls.

Our job is to live as well and as long as we can, and to help others to do the same. What happens after that and how we are viewed by others is beyond our control.

You are carrying the future of America in your heart and your mind. So live your dreams and remember, whatever you choose to do with your life, you must also be a citizen of your country, your n ation, and our interdependent world. Because while our differences make life more fascinating, our common humanity matters more.

We live in a completely interdependent world, which simply means we can not escape each other. How we respond to AIDS depends, in part, on whether we understand this interdependence. It is not someone else's problem. This is everybody's problem.

When our memories outweigh our dreams, it is then that we become old.

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

We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.

When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale.

Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.

A man is more than the sum of all the things he can do.