Bill Clinton Quotes

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.

[Iraq is] not Vietnam, we have a government that has a support of the majority of the people.

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

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.

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

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there for oil. We didn't go in there for imperialist or financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that the Iraqis would be better off, we could shake up the authoritarian Arab regimes in the Middle East, and our leverage to make peace between the Palestinians and Israelis would be increased.

People like you always help the far-right, because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings.

I felt like a pickle stepping into history.

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.

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.

Because Israel believes, when it comes right down to it America is the only big country that cares whether they live or die. That's why I can say, give up the West Bank, because the Israelis knew that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan river, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die, and I would.

A preemptive action today, however well-justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future. And because ... I've done this. I've ordered these kinds of actions — I don't care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off, innocent people will die.

Let me tell you what the facts are. Now, we had a hard time getting those facts into these debates, because they're so inconvenient for the other side. And I admire that about the Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. ... They are not bothered at all by the facts. And you've got to kind of give it to them. ... They know what they're for.

History has shown us, that you can't allow the mass extermination of people, and just sit by and watch it happen.