William J. Clinton Quotes

“In today's knowledge-based economy, what you earn depends on what you learn. Jobs in the information technology sector, for example, pay 85 percent more than the private sector average.”

— William J. Clinton

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

— William J. Clinton

I believe I'm a better authority than anybody else in America on my own wife. I have never known a person with a stronger sense of right and wrong in my life ever.

— William J. Clinton

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.

— William J. Clinton

“My plan after office is to get up and spend that entire first day helping my wife move into her new senatorial office.”

— William J. Clinton

“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.”

— William J. Clinton

“I'm pretty good at seeing like a lot of different things happening at once and putting them in a pattern and figuring out how you can rearrange it so it might have a better outcome.”

— William J. Clinton

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.

— William J. Clinton

“We must work tirelessly to make sure that every boy and girl in America who is up for adoption has a family waiting to reach him or her ... This is a season of miracles, and perhaps there is no greater miracle than finding a loving home for a child who needs one.”

— William J. Clinton

“Just try to imagine what it would be like to be 300 million years old.”

— William J. Clinton

“You can't blame the administration and the Republicans for taking us back to deficits, for spending the Social Security surplus and assaulting the environment. That's what they promised to do in the last election.”

— William J. Clinton

“The best example of all, to me, that our problems are both personal and cultural and political and social is the whole condition of the middle class economically.”

— William J. Clinton

People like change in general, but not in particular.

— William J. Clinton

From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way.

— William J. Clinton

Our military superiority is so great - it's far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days ... Now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad ... The odds are there's going to be a war and it's going to be not for very long.

— William J. Clinton

“The light may be fading on the 20th century, but the sun is still rising on America.”

— William J. Clinton

“You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.”

— William J. Clinton

“It was Mario Cuomo's great gift and our good fortune that he was both a sterling orator and a passionate public servant. His life was a blessing.”

— William J. Clinton

“The struggle for your own character is the struggle for the nation's character.”

— William J. Clinton

“I believe we have made a decision now that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment, and a greater possibility of world peace, we are on the verge of a global economic expansion that is sparked by the fact that the United States at this critical moment decided that we would compete, not retreat.”

— William J. Clinton

“On Bill Clinton: I have a simple question: Who's the last President to give you a balanced budget?”

— William J. Clinton

The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology ... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand.

— William J. Clinton

“It simply doesn't make any sense for us to have illegal aliens in our custody in our courts and then let them go back to living here illegally. That's wrong and we should stop it.”

— William J. Clinton

“When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps”

— William J. Clinton

“The secret to living a full life with no regrets and to staying young is to figure out what you believe in and fight for it. If you lose, don't give up. If you win, raise the bar, and then rare back and do something else. And remember that, with the accumulation of years, our responsibilities to the future grow greater, not less.”

— William J. Clinton

“We know that when we protect our oceans we're protecting our future.”

— William J. Clinton

“The simple fact is that we must not-and we will not-surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.”

— William J. Clinton

“We can't afford to lose control of our own borders or to take on new financial burdens at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care and the education of our own people.”

— William J. Clinton

“No generation has had the opportunity, as we now have, to build a global economy that leaves no-one behind. It is a wonderful opportunity, but also a profound responsibility.”

— William J. Clinton

“NASA even sent Chuck Berry's music on a space probe searching for intelligent life in outer space. Well, now, if they're out there, they're duck walking”

— William J. Clinton

“AIDS is no longer a death sentence for those who can get the medicines. Now it's up to the politicians to create the "comprehensive strategies" to better treat the disease.”

— William J. Clinton

If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you're willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family. And we're proud to be with you.

— William J. Clinton

“Millions of people of color still experience racism daily.”

— William J. Clinton

“In our own country, we have seen America pay a terrible price for any form of discrimination. And we have seen us grow stronger as we have steadily let more and more of our hatreds and our fears go, as we have given more and more of our people the chance to live their dreams. That is why the flame of our Statue of Liberty, like the Olympic flame carried all across America by thousands of citizen heroes, will always burn brighter than the fires that burn our churches, our synagogues, our mosques, always.”

— William J. Clinton

“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.”

— William J. Clinton

“I have no intention of raising taxes”

— William J. Clinton

“I am trying to be honest with you and it hurts me. Now ...”

— William J. Clinton

“Do you think I'd be stupid enough to go running with someone I was foolin' with?”

— William J. Clinton

We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

— William J. Clinton

“In general I saw my job as the first president whose full term would be served after the Cold War in a global information society where we were interdependent but not integrated. And therefore, we were vulnerable to the worst, and able to seize the best, of what's going on in the world.”

— William J. Clinton

We should make it a crime even to attempt to pollute. Our children should grow up next to parks, not poison.

— William J. Clinton

We must continue to deepen our ties to the Americas and the Caribbean, our common work to educate children, fight drugs, strengthen democracy, and increase trade.

— William J. Clinton

Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the worldwide problem of climate change, global warming, the gathering crisis that requires worldwide action.

— William J. Clinton

“I like the vegetables, the fruits, the beans, the stuff I eat now ... All my blood tests are good, and my vital signs are good, and I feel good, and I also have, believe it or not, more energy.”

— William J. Clinton

“Just because you can't do everything, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do what you can.”

— William J. Clinton

“So much of modern politics is focused not on honest differences of policy but on personal attacks.”

— William J. Clinton

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?

— William J. Clinton

“Poverty, discrimination, and ignorance restrict growth.”

— William J. Clinton

“True Excellence requires a worthy dream, a good Idea of how to realize it and the courage to risk failure to achieve it.”

— William J. Clinton

“Never tell anyone to go to hell unless you can make 'em go.”

— William J. Clinton