Joe Biden Quotes

I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong.

I had some comments to make to you. I'm not going to make them. I'm going to just summarize this way: You know, tonight, as I met with some of my colleagues that I've worked with from countries all across the region, including earlier today with Xi Jinping of China, you know, there's reason to be optimistic. There's reason to be optimistic. I look at all of you and I see the enthusiasm, I see the sense of possibilities. I was once asked by Xi Jinping in China … spent a lot of time with him, traveled 17,000 miles with him. He said, "Can you define America for me?" I said, "I can in one word, and I mean it: possibilities." Anything is possible in this country if we do it together, and we're going to start that now.

Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn′t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn′t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.

The United States will always promote human rights and the values enshrined in the U.N. Charter in our own country and around the world. Let me end with this: This institution, guided by the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at its core an act of dauntless hope. Let me say that again: It’s an act of dauntless hope. Think about the vision of those first delegates who undertook a seemingly impossible task while the world was still smoldering. Think about how divided the people of the world must have felt with the fresh grief of millions dead, the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust exposed. They had every right to believe only the worst of humanity. Instead, they reached for what was best in all of us, and they strove to build something better: enduring peace; comity among nations; equal rights for every member of the human family; cooperation for the advancement of all humankind. My fellow leaders, the challenges we face today are great indeed, but our capacity is greater. Our commitment must be greater still. So let’s stand together to again declare the unmistakable resolve that nations of the world are united still, that we stand for the values of the U.N. Charter, that we still believe by working together we can bend the arc of history toward a freer and more just world for all our children, although none of us have fully achieved it. We’re not passive witnesses to history; we are the authors of history. We can do this — we have to do it — for ourselves and for our future, for humankind.

Over the last 30 years, the forces of autocracy have revived all across the globe. Its hallmarks are familiar ones: contempt for the rule of law, contempt for democratic freedom, contempt for the truth itself.

The regime’s brutality and repression of the Syrian people, who have called for freedom and a representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but also generates instability throughout the region.

And no longer is this a question of what will we do — what will the United States do for the Americas. The question is what we accomplish by working together as true partners with diverse capabilities but equal and mutual respect, recognizing both our individual sovereignty and our shared responsibilities.

Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. — Immanuel Kant

For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegiance to our vision simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy.

... in an airport in '64, Goldwater said, 'Well, keep punching, Hubert' during a chance meeting there.
By the end of 1977, it became increasingly clear that the Boss (Hubert Humphrey) would not be around much longer. And on the Senate floor one day, Barry Goldwater walked across the aisle and enveloped Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater was so big and Humphrey so frail that Humphrey almost disappeared. The two men stood for a long moment, locked in a hug, and I could see that both men were crying. They made no effort to hide it.

Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.

We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool. So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever.

I’ve warned about how this decision risks the broader right to privacy for everyone. That’s because Roe recognized the fundamental right to privacy that has served as the basis for so many more rights that we have come to take — we’ve come to take for granted that are ingrained in the fabric of this country: the right to make the best decisions for your health; the right to use birth control — a married couple — in the privacy of their bedroom, for God’s sake; the right to marry the person you love. Now, Justice Thomas said as much today. He explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception. This is an extreme and dangerous path the Court is now taking us on.

The heart of American capitalism is a simple idea: open and fair competition — that means that if your companies want to win your business, they have to go out and they have to up their game; better prices and services; new ideas and products. That competition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing. Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth. By the same token, "competitive economy" means companies must do all they do to do — everything they do to compete for workers: offering higher wages, more flexible hours, better benefits. But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back. We see it in big agriculture, in big tech, in big pharma. The list goes on. Rather than competing for consumers, they are consuming their competitors. Rather than competing for workers, they’re finding ways to gain the upper hand on labor. And too often, the government has actually made it harder for new companies to break in and compete.

My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, nearly four years ago in winter on the steps of the Capitol, on a cold January day, I raised my right hand and I swore an oath to you and to God, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States. In front of me was a city surrounded by the National Guard. Behind me, a Capitol just two weeks before had been overrun by a violent mob. But I knew then, from the bottom of my heart that I knew now, there is no place in America for political violence. None.