Top 500 William J. Clinton Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “One of the things that all kids are taught by their parents is this old “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.””

— William J. Clinton

302. “The simple fact is that we must not-and we will not-surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.”

— William J. Clinton

303. “Now, people ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: Arithmetic.”

— William J. Clinton

304. “The most important question of the 21st century is not what or how much, it is ‘How?’ How do you propose to turn your good ideas into positive changes in other people’s lives? You must be the ‘how generation.’”

— William J. Clinton

305. “We should make it a crime even to attempt to pollute. Our children should grow up next to parks, not poison.”

— William J. Clinton

306. “We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by human kind.”

— William J. Clinton

307. “I am fascinated by this partnership between Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. It’s magic and I love it.”

— William J. Clinton

308. “Americans – not just starting thirty years ago but going back to the beginning, when we were rebelling against King George – we’ve always been of two minds about the government, which is why the framers wrote the Constitution the way they did.”

— William J. Clinton

309. “Since I don’t have access to the White House pastry chef anymore, it’s done wonders for my figure.”

— William J. Clinton

310. “The first thing I had to start with was, you know, we don’t have a war. We don’t have a depression, we don’t have a Cold War.”

— William J. Clinton

311. “Let us never forget the greatest untapped market for American enterprise is right here in America, in the inner cities, in the rural areas.”

— William J. Clinton

312. “Palestinians are a hard-working and an incredible community. They have done remarkably well outside their country. I have never met a poor Palestinian in the United States; every Palestinian I know is a college professor or a doctor.”

— William J. Clinton

313. “I’m just trying to suppress my natural impulses and get back to work.”

— William J. Clinton

314. “I am trying to be honest with you and it hurts me. Now...”

— William J. Clinton

315. “I’m Bill Clinton and I think you deserve a change. That’s why I’ve offered a plan to get the economy moving again, starting with a middle-class tax cut...”

— William J. Clinton

316. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

317. “If President Reagan could be an actor and become president, maybe I could become an actor. I’ve got a good pension. I can work for cheap.”

— William J. Clinton

318. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

319. “I do think that the role of the Internet, and the way it’s bringing everything into the home, has made a parent’s job much more difficult. And it’s harder to know what to do and how to do it. It’s much, much harder.”

— William J. Clinton

320. “Terrorists are as big a threat to our future, perhaps bigger, than organized crime.”

— William J. Clinton

321. “If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family. And we’re proud to be with you.”

— William J. Clinton

322. “We don’t need a constitutional amendment for kids to pray.”

— William J. Clinton

323. “It was Mario Cuomo’s great gift and our good fortune that he was both a sterling orator and a passionate public servant. His life was a blessing.”

— William J. Clinton

324. “We have the most religious freedom of any country in the world, including the freedom not to believe.”

— William J. Clinton

325. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

326. “It’s heartbreaking to see so many people trapped in a web of enforced idleness, deep debt, and gnawing self-doubt.”

— William J. Clinton

327. “By the end of the first month of the 1995 session, each senator will have made more money than any person who works 40 hours a week at minimum wage for the entire year.”

— William J. Clinton

328. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

329. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

330. “I don’t know in my long life that I ever worked with anybody that has quite the combination of policy knowledge and concern, political skills, of a personal touch with people, and a sense of innate fairness that inspires confidence.”

— William J. Clinton

331. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

332. “All of us have to do a better job of teaching young people not to let themselves be defined by the words other people use against them.”

— William J. Clinton

333. “When you’re president, the Democrats got to feel good when they walk in the door if you’re a Republican; if you’re a Democrat, the Republican has to feel like you’re listening. And you should be listening.”

— William J. Clinton

334. “Rarely have Americans lived through so much change, in so many ways, in so short a time. Quietly, but with gathering force, the ground has shifted beneath our feet as we have moved into an Information Age, a global economy, a truly new world.”

— William J. Clinton

335. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

336. “My only enemy is right-wing religious fundamentalism.”

— William J. Clinton

337. “Because primarily of the power of the Internet, people of modest means can band together and amass vast sums of money that can change the world for some public good if they all agree.”

— William J. Clinton

338. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

339. “When we put aside partisanship, embrace the best ideas regardless of where they come from and work for principled compromise, we can move America not left or right, but forward.”

— William J. Clinton

340. “You can’t blame the administration and the Republicans for taking us back to deficits, for spending the Social Security surplus and assaulting the environment. That’s what they promised to do in the last election.”

— William J. Clinton

341. “The light may be fading on the 20th century, but the sun is still rising on America.”

— William J. Clinton

342. “I know that the precise magnitude and patterns of climate change cannot be fully predicted. But global warming clearly is a growing, long-term threat with profound consequences. And make no mistake about it, it will take decades to reverse.”

— William J. Clinton

343. “I believe that this country’s policies should be heavily biased in favor of nondiscrimination.”

— William J. Clinton

344. “If you come from a wealthy country with open borders, unless you seriously believe you can kill, imprison or occupy all your enemies, you have to make a world with more friends and fewer enemies – with more partners and fewer terrorists.”

— William J. Clinton

345. “I try to be self-analytical, both to outline the mistakes I made in my life and try to explain why I did, and the things that on balance I did pretty well on.”

— William J. Clinton

346. “Today what we are doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down those antiquated laws and granting banks significant new authority.”

— William J. Clinton

347. “We all have to learn to live together.”

— William J. Clinton

348. “The greatest progress we have made, and the greatest progress we have yet to make, is in the human heart. In the end, all the world’s wealth and a thousand armies are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit.”

— William J. Clinton

349. “I believe I’m a better authority than anybody else in America on my own wife. I have never known a person with a stronger sense of right and wrong in my life ever.”

— William J. Clinton

350. “You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year’s one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.”

— William J. Clinton