Top 500 William J. Clinton Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 2 of 10

51. “Education no longer stops on graduation day. We must demand excellence at every level of education.”

— William J. Clinton

52. “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

53. “It is dangerously destabilizing to have half the world on the cutting edge of technology while the other half struggles on the bare edge of survival.”

— William J. Clinton

54. “Turning 50 gives me more yesterdays than tomorrows.”

— William J. Clinton

55. “If there’s grass in the field, play ball!”

— William J. Clinton

56. “Nothing big ever came from being small.”

— William J. Clinton

57. “You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.”

— William J. Clinton

58. “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

59. “Throughout the Middle East, there is a great yearning for the quiet miracle of a normal life.”

— William J. Clinton

60. “The people have spoken, but it will take a while to determine exactly what they said.”

— William J. Clinton

61. “I still believe in a place called Hope, a place called America.”

— William J. Clinton

62. “When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.”

— William J. Clinton

63. “Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life.”

— William J. Clinton

64. “Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We, the American people, we are the solution.”

— William J. Clinton

65. “What works in the real world is cooperation.”

— William J. Clinton

66. “Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it’s the time when they most need to think.”

— William J. Clinton

67. “Just as war is freedom’s cost, disagreement is freedom’s privilege.”

— William J. Clinton

68. “There seems to be no mainframe explanation for the PC world in which we’re living.”

— William J. Clinton

69. “We need to help younger people recognize their own capacity to do good, and help them discover the rewards of generosity.”

— William J. Clinton

70. “Politics is for people who are too ugly to get into showbusiness.”

— William J. Clinton

71. “Hope I lived up to my reputation for being slick.”

— William J. Clinton

72. “Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens.”

— William J. Clinton

73. “Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.”

— William J. Clinton

74. “Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It’s fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people.”

— William J. Clinton

75. “Character doesn’t matter.”

— William J. Clinton

76. “If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.”

— William J. Clinton

77. “Poverty, discrimination, and ignorance restrict growth.”

— William J. Clinton

78. “I may not have been the greatest president, but I’ve had the most fun eight years.”

— William J. Clinton

Featured in: Fun Quotes

79. “When I was a younger man and had a life, I owned an El Camino pickup in the ’70s. It was a real sort of Southern deal. I had Astroturf in the back.”

— William J. Clinton

80. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

81. “In science, if the last 50 years were the age of physics, the next 50 years will be the age of biology.”

— William J. Clinton

82. “Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.”

— William J. Clinton

83. “Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference.”

— William J. Clinton

84. “Our generation, like the one before us, must choose. Without the threat of the Cold War, without the pain of economic ruin, without the fresh memory of World War II’s slaughter, it is tempting to pursue our private agendas – to simply sit back and let history unfold. We must resist the temptation.”

— William J. Clinton

85. “When you strip away all the little things that divide us, it’s important to remember how tied we are.”

— William J. Clinton

86. “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

87. “I made a big mistake. It is indefensible and I am sorry.”

— William J. Clinton

88. “Downsizing budgets may be necessary, but downsizing dreams is a decision to be disappointed.”

— William J. Clinton

89. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

Featured in: Fun Quotes

90. “I don’t like to use the word sacrifice.”

— William J. Clinton

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

— William J. Clinton

92. “We must say no to illegal immigration so we can continue to say yes to legal immigration.”

— William J. Clinton

93. “You should strive to find happiness every day and not believe that it comes at the end of the journey.”

— William J. Clinton

94. “I tried marijuana once. I did not inhale.”

— William J. Clinton

95. “I love and revere the rich and proud history of America. And I am determined to take our best traditions into the future. But with all respect, we do not need to build a bridge to the past. We need to build a bridge to the future.”

— William J. Clinton

96. “I like that about the Republicans; the evidence does not faze them, they are not bothered at all by the facts.”

— William J. Clinton

97. “Success is not the measure of a man but a triumph over those who choose to hold him back.”

— William J. Clinton

98. “I tried to walk a line between acting lawfully AND testifying falsely, but I now realize that I did not fully accomplish that goal.”

— William J. Clinton

99. “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; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.”

— William J. Clinton

100. “Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is entirely too secular. The fact that we have freedom of religion doesn’t mean we need to try to have freedom from religion.”

— William J. Clinton