Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For 60 years, Social Security has meant more than an ID number on a tax form; more than a monthly check in the mail. It reflects our deepest values - our respect for our parents and our belief that all Americans deserve to retire with dignity.
I want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we're going to make to have a short-term economic strategy and a long-term fairness strategy, which is part of getting this country going again.
We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it.
We have a chance here to prove that [Rwanda], a country that almost slaughtered itself out of existence, can practice reconciliation, reorganize itself, focus on tomorrow and provide comprehensive, quality health care with minimal outside help.
That is, we're into a whole new world with the Internet, and whenever we sort of cross another plateau in our development, there are those who seek to take advantage of it. So this is a replay of things that have happened throughout our history.
One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008.
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 times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.
I will get things done for America.... Faced with apathy, I will take action. Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.... Faced with adversity, I will persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year. I am an Americorps volunteer.
We must all be profoundly grateful for the magnificent achievements of our forbearers in this century. Yet perhaps in the daily press of events, in the clash of controversy, we don't see our own time for what it truly is - a new dawn for America.
When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.
Simply put, no society can truly flourish if it stifles the dreams and productivity of half its population. Happily, I see evidence all over the world that women are gaining social and economic power that they never had before. This is good news.
We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
Citizenship in the 21st century requires more than paying your taxes and voting and occasionally running for office. That even if you're never in political office, you have political responsibilities. You can make your society stronger and better.
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.
When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.
Our bridge to the future must include bridges to other nations, because we remain the world's indispensable nation to advance prosperity, peace and freedom and to keep our own children safe from the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction.
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.
Learning improves in school environments where there are comprehensive music and arts programs. They increase the ability of young people to do math. They increase the ability of young people to read. And most important of all, they're a lot of fun.
Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.
We should stay on the right track to the 21st century. Opportunity alone is not enough. I want to build an America in the 21st century in which all Americans take personal responsibility for themselves, their families, their communities and their country.
All America loses when any person is denied or forced out of a job because of sexual orientation. Being gay, the last time I thought about it, seemed to have nothing to do with the ability to read a balance book, fix a broken bone, or change a spark plug.
Forget what you may have heard about a digital divide or worries that the world is splintering into 'info haves' and 'info have-nots.' The fact is, technology fosters equality, and it's often the relatively cheap and mundane devices that do the most good.
I am grateful to President George W. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've done together after the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.
A world without walls is the only sustainable world. . . . If the world is dominated by people who believe that their races, their religions, their ethnic differences are the most important factors, then a huge number of people will perish in this century.
One of the main reasons we ought to re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation... He appointed Republican secretaries of defense, the Army and transportation. He appointed a vice president who ran against him in 2008.
The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.
We set forth on a journey to bring our vision to our country, to keep the American dream alive for all who are willing to work for it, to make our American community stronger, to keep America the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity.
When I was in office I expressed admiration and respect and even affection for Republicans that I knew and liked and cared about, and I tried to find ways to work with them. I think the Democrats should do that, and just keep trying to lower the temperature.
President Obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas and the direction America has to take to build the 21st-century version of the American Dream: a nation of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity, a shared sense of community.
Democracies don't go to war against each other, and by and large they don't sponsor terrorism. They're more likely to respect the environment and human rights and social justice. It's no accident that most of the terrorists come from non-democratic countries.
When I started out in public life there used to be a saying we'd hear from time to time, that every man who runs for public office will claim that he was born in a log cabin he built with his own hands. Well, my mother knew better. And she made sure I did too.
We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values. Technology can help cure diseases, but we can prevent a lot of diseases by old-fashioned changes in behavior.
It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine. First and most important, my family, my friends, my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.
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.
If you believe in a security strategy - a strategy of more friends and fewer enemies, a strategy of greater cooperation and a strategy of keeping America better at home as we grow more diverse - we have to build the minds and hearts to build this kind of world.
We simply have to transition from an economy based almost exclusively on oil and coal and natural gas to one that's far more diversified, that uses solar energy, and wind energy, and the power of the tides, and bio-mass energy, and eventually, develops hydrogen.
After years of denial and deception, the Philip Morris company has admitted that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. This formal acknowledgment comes far too late but still we must all welcome it. It can be the beginning of clearing the air.
It's important that the American people understand that President has proposed and passed this stimulus plan not as the end-all and be-all to our economic woes but as our bridge over troubled water until we get the finance system, the banking system working again.
Hillary had never run for office before, but she decided to give it a try. She began her campaign the way she always does new things, by listening and and learning. And after a tough battle, New York elected her to the seat once held by another outsider, Robert Kennedy.
Edgar Wayburn has worked to preserve the most breath-taking examples of the American landscape. In fact, over the course of more than a half-century, both as President of the Sierra Club and as a private citizen, he has saved more of our wilderness than any person alive.
It appears that some school officials, teachers, and parents have assumed that religious expression of any type is either inappropriate or forbidden altogether in public schools; however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones.
I think if the White House or the President want to say anything about our conversations or anything I tried to do to help our country with their support or at their request, then I think they should be the ones to do that. But I think that former presidents should do that.
I married my best friend. I was still in awe after more than four years of being around her at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was. And I really hoped that her choosing me and rejecting my advice to pursue her own career was a decision she would never regret.
I believe that those who promote discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or any other grounds are gravely mistaken about the values that make our nation strong. I will continue to move my administration in the direction of compassion, acceptance, and understanding.
We respect the individual conscience of every American on the painful issue of abortion, but believe as a matter of law that this decision should be left to a woman, her conscience, her doctor and her God. But abortion should not only be be safe and legal, it should be rare.
There's this whole problem of trafficking, which has gotten worse in the economic downturn, which disproportionately affects young women, but also affects some young men who are sold into bondage, into basically servitude for indebted work that they can often never escape from.
To realize the full possibilities of this economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, and economies and cultures: globalization. It's the central reality of our time.
[Illegal immigration] costs the taxpayers of the United States a lot of money. And it's unfair to Americans who are working every day to pay their own bills. It's also unfair to a lot of people who have waited in line for years and years in other countries to be legal immigrants.
That everybody can do something, without regard to how old or young they are, rich or poor or middle class they are, how busy or not busy they are and what level skills they have. Everyone can do something. And everybody should do something. ... And if you do it, you'll be happier.