Clinton World Initiative Quotes

During the Clinton administration, America's image was that of a strong, confident and kind world leader. ~ Mike Medavoy

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

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. ~ William J. Clinton

You don't have to wait till your party's in power to have an impact on life at home and around the world. ~ William J. Clinton

I've been talking about income inequality in America for twenty years, and when I was president, people didn't pay much attention to it, probably because wages were going up. But I don't think I've given a single solitary speech since I left office that I hadn't talked about it. It's a problem around the world and within the United States. So these people have put that on the agenda. ~ William J. Clinton

We cannot promote someone to Commander-in-Chief who has made the world a more violent and dangerous place with every bad judgment Hillary Clinton has made. ~ Chris Christie

The right to express one's views, practice one's faith, peacefully assemble with others to pursue political or social change - these are all rights to which all human beings are entitled, whether they choose to exercise them in a city square or an Internet chat room. And just as we have worked together since the last century to secure these rights in the material world, we must work together in this century to secure them in cyberspace. ~ Hillary Clinton

Democracy is still a radical idea in a world where we often confuse images with realities, words with actions. ~ Hillary Clinton

Over the years, so many of the barriers that prevented people from getting married, crossing lines of faith or color or ethnicity have just disappeared. Because what's important is: 'Are you making a responsible decision? Have you thought it through? Do you understand the consequences?' And I think in the world that we're in today we need more of that. ~ Hillary Clinton

New information and communications technologies can improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, but only if such technologies are designed from the beginning so that everyone can use them. Given the explosive growth in the use of the World Wide Web for publishing, electronic commerce, lifelong learning and the delivery of government services, it is vital that the Web be accessible to everyone. ~ William J. Clinton

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. ~ Hillary Clinton

The Arctic is going to be an area of intense interest. Russia has the longest coastline in the world with the Arctic. ~ Hillary Clinton

It's true that America can't solve every problem, but I don't know of any major problem in the world that can be solved without us. ~ Hillary Clinton

They agreed, without any prodding, without the shadows of obligation or compromise, on Barack Obama. At first, even though she wished America would elect a black man as president, she thought it impossible, and she could not imagine Obama as president of the United States; he seemed too slight, too skinny, a man who would be blown away by the wind. Hillary Clinton was sturdier. Ifemelu liked to watch Clinton on television, in her square trouser suits, her face a mask of resolve, her prettiness disguised, because that was the only way to convince the world that she was able. Ifemelu ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Millions of people around the world suffer daily from the harmful health and environmental impacts caused by indoor cooking fires and inefficient cookstoves. Together with the Global Alliance on Clean Cookstoves, we are taking action to address this critical problem and to promote a cleaner, healthier environment. I am pleased to celebrate the launch of this Alliance and proud to say that agencies from across the U.S. Federal Government will continue to play an important role in this initiative. ~ Nancy Sutley

Mortals, while through the world you go,
Hope may succor and faith befriend,
Yet happy your hearts if you can but know,
Love awaits at the journey's end! ~ Clinton Scollard

Our mission in this new century is clear. For good or ill, we live in an interdependent world. We can't escape each other. Therefore, we have to spend our lives building a global community of shared responsibilities, shared values, shared benefits. ~ William J. Clinton

We're [Clinton Foundation] trying to get rapid tests that give you results when you're right there on site at an affordable price. Ninety percent of the HIV-positive people in the world don't know they have the infection. An enormous amount of infections are being perpetrated by people who don't know they themselves are HIV positive. ~ William J. Clinton

Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops ask you're going to see all kinds of international conflict. ~ Hillary Clinton

Americans need help understanding their world now more than ever. [TV] believes it's filled its obligation to the public because it's presented both sides. But most of what we're living through now has multiple sides, and those sides, if you take the extreme oppositional views, have to be brought together for people to make a decision about how to act on the information. ~ Hillary Clinton

And to all the young people in particular, I hope you will hear this. I have, as Tim said, spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I've had successes and I've had setbacks. Sometimes, really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional public and political careers. You will have successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it. It is. It is worth it. And so we need, we need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives. And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion. Now, I, I know, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. And, and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

At the same time, old confrontations have taken on frightening urgency, especially the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir and the violent stalemate in the Middle East. Progress on these and other global challenges requires us to develop a larger strategy for American foreign policy, rooted in a fundamental commitment to move the world from interdependence to an integrated global community committed to peace and prosperity, freedom and security. ~ William J. Clinton

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did more to liberate people by defeating the Soviet Union and freeing eastern Europe than the Obamas, the Clintons, and Kerrys of this world ever have. They were all on the wrong side of that debate. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Islam is one of the fastest-growing faiths within America, and America needs to show that we're not anti-Islam. We are for, for people being free and having opportunity everywhere, that ... We did that in Bosnia, we did that in Kosovo, we did that in numerous other places in the world. ~ William J. Clinton

New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with?

America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag.

And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail.

Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now ~ Bill Maher

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. ~ William J. Clinton

President Clinton broke ground Saturday for the World War II memorial in Washington. He'll never have the military's full respect. However, after surviving ten female accusers, he's been made an honorary member of the Tailhook Association. ~ Argus Hamilton

One of the things that I realized when I left office was that in the 1990's citizens across the world applied more power than they had ever had, as compared with the government, because of more people living under democracies than dictatorships for the first time, the power of the internet, which the young Chinese used to basically change China's policy on the SARS epidemic, and shut it down, and because of the rise in non-governmental organizations like my foundation. ~ William J. Clinton

I mean my life was a combination of fascination with other people, with politics, and with policy, and the impact of government decisions on people's lives and the life of our nation and the life of the world. ~ William J. Clinton

Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative is working to create opportunity and empower women and girls in markets around the world. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell

A friend told me that each morning when we get up we have to decide whether we are going to save or savor the world. I don't think that is the decision. It's not an either-or, save or savor. We have to do both, save and savor the world. ~ Kate Clinton

When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations, and the world. ~ Hillary Clinton

I gave to a [Hillary Clinton ]foundation that, frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didn't know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. ~ Donald Trump

The media and intelligentsia were partly complicit in Trump's depiction of the world as a dystopia headed for even greater disaster. 'Charge the cockpit or you die!' cried the pro-Trump intellectual right. 'I'd rather see the empire burn to the ground under Trump, opening up at least the possibility of radical change, than cruise on autopilot under Clinton,' said the pro-Trump left. When people believe that the world is heading off a cliff, they are receptive to the perennial appeal of demagogues: 'What do you have to lose?'

But if the media and intellectuals put events into statistical and historical context, rather than constantly crying 'crisis,' they would make it clearer what the answer to that question is. Revolutionary regimes from Nazi Germany and Maoist China to contemporary Venezuela show that people have a tremendous amount to lose when a charismatic leader forces a radical personal vision on a society. A modern liberal democracy is a precious achievement. Until the messiah comes, it will always have problems, but it's better to solve problems than to start a conflagration and hope for the best. ~ Steven Pinker

For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton ... It's crazy. It's mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians, by America in general. ~ Jay-Z

[I]t is the powerful who write the laws of the world-- and the powerful who ignore these laws when expediency dictates. ~ Michael Parenti

you know how I feel about the United Nations. From the beginning, it's functioned as a one-world-order organization whose sole function is to look down its collective nose at the one nation that funds it, the United States. The UN has advocated the transfer of wealth out of the United States, the elimination of international borders, the establishment of a single global currency, international gun control, and the elimination of American jobs. It's become a friendly forum for radical and scientifically absurd ideas like global warming and has advocated cockamamie international tax schemes like cap-and-trade. It has done everything it can to end the sovereignty of the United States. ~ Don Brown

Adam and Eve, placed in the garden of Eden, find themselves forbidden to eat of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17). Catholic theologians believe this "knowledge" forbidden by Elohim-Yahweh is neither omniscience nor moral discernment, but the ability to decide what is good or evil. Jewish theology is more subtle. The "tree" of the knowledge is interpreted as the representation of a world where good and evil "are in a combined state," where there is no absolute Good and Evil. In other words, the "tree" is a foreshadowing of the real world we live in, a world where nothing is absolutely clear cut, where moral imperatives are tied to human values, and where everything of any greatness and importance always takes place beyond good and evil. Furthermore, in the Hebrew tradition "to eat" means "to assimilate." To eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is therefore to personally enter this real world where human initiative "combines" good and evil. Adam's transgression, from which all the others are derived, is clearly "that of autonomy," accordingly, as emphasized by Eisenberg and Abecassis, this would be "the desire to conduct his own history alone in according to his own desire and his own word or law. ~ Alain De Benoist