Top 40 Joe Biden Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

— Joe Biden

2. “We all know – or at least we are told continuously – that we are a divided people. And we know there’s a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them.”

— Joe Biden

3. “We Irish are the only people in the world who are actually nostalgic about the future.”

— Joe Biden

4. “True bravery is when there is very little chance of winning, but you keep fighting.”

— Joe Biden

5. “And if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge. Each side has to be willing to try to understand the concerns of the other.”

— Joe Biden

6. “We have to take care of the cure that will make the problem worse no matter what.”

— Joe Biden

7. “Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. – Immanuel Kant.”

— Joe Biden

8. “We have put together one of the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organizations in the history of American politics.”

— Joe Biden

9. “It’s time to reach deep into the soul of this country and once again give everyone – and I mean everyone – the opportunity to achieve the impossible.”

— Joe Biden

10. “But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common...”

— Joe Biden

11. “Ya know, Joey,’ Uncle Ed would say, ‘there’s no accountin’ for horses’ asses.”

— Joe Biden

12. “For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they are deranged, not because they were nuts, but because they had been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again.”

— Joe Biden

13. “So how do I want to spend the rest of my life? I want to spend as much time as I can with my family, and I want to help change the country and the world for the better. That duty does much more than give me purpose; it gives me something to hope for. It makes me nostalgic for the future.”

— Joe Biden

14. “So I try to be mindful, at all times, of what a difference a small human gesture can make to people in need. What does it really cost to take a moment to look someone in the eye, to give him a hug, to let her know, I get it. You’re not alone?”

— Joe Biden

15. “Reality has a way of intruding.”

— Joe Biden

16. “Israel has no better friend than Joe Biden.”

— Joe Biden

17. “This can happen again. This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.”

— Joe Biden

18. “I wasn’t built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong.”

— Joe Biden

19. “To me this is the first principle of life, the foundational principle, and a lesson you can’t learn at the foot of any wise man: Get up! The art of living is simply getting up after you’ve been knocked down.”

— Joe Biden

20. “I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn’t mean I could speak for all young people.”

— Joe Biden

21. “One of my colleagues in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once made this simple but profound observation about us Irish: “To fail to understand that life is going to knock you down is to fail to understand the Irishness of life.”

— Joe Biden

22. “There will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son, or daughter, or your wife or your husband, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner than later.”

— Joe Biden

23. “My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn’t how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up. I made a pledge to myself that I would get up and emerge from this debacle better for having gone through it. I would live up to the expectation I had for myself. I would be the kind of man I wanted to be.”

— Joe Biden

24. “Funerals are for the living, I have always believed, and the job of the eulogist is to acknowledge the enormity of the loss they have just suffered and to help them appreciate that the legacy and accomplishments of their loved one have not died with them.”

— Joe Biden

25. “Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot.”

— Joe Biden

26. “History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.”

— Joe Biden

27. “When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” Joe Sr. had written to his friend. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world.”

— Joe Biden

28. “We must have public officials who will stand up and tell the people exactly what they think... Our failure in recent years has not been the failure of the people to meet the challenges placed before them, but rather the failure of both our great political parties to place those challenges honestly and courageously before the people, and to trust the willingness of the people to do the things that really need to be done.”

— Joe Biden

29. “When Seagull droppings landed on my head at a campaign event, I chose to read it as a sign of a coming success.”

— Joe Biden

30. “Humans were capable of incredible cruelty, our father wanted me, my sister, and my brothers to understand. And just as dangerous, he made us see, human beings were also capable of looking the other way and remaining silent when awful things were happening all around them.”

— Joe Biden

31. “He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future. ‘Run for governor. Have a purpose.’ Almost every day after that, I found myself acting on that advice – have a purpose. No matter what came at me, I held fast to my own sense of purpose.”

— Joe Biden

32. “Reverend Clementa.”

— Joe Biden

33. “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”

— Joe Biden

34. “The only way I survived, the only way I got through it, was by staying busy and keeping my mind, when it can be, focused on my job.”

— Joe Biden

35. “I thought I’d died and gone to Yale.”

— Joe Biden

36. “We should not let this disease take over our entire existence. He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future: “Run for governor. Have a purpose.”

— Joe Biden

37. “Dad. Look at me. Look at me, Dad. Remember, Dad. Home base, Dad. Home base.” What he was saying was: Remember who you are. Remember what matters. Stay true to your ideals. Be courageous.”

— Joe Biden

38. “We prefer truth over facts.”

— Joe Biden

39. “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.”

— Joe Biden

40. “I was a newly elected thirty-year-old United States senator, excited to be down in Washington interviewing staff, when I got the call that my wife and eighteen-month-old daughter had died in a car accident while out shopping the week before Christmas. Beau and Hunt had been in the car, too.”

— Joe Biden

41. “We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.”

— Joe Biden