Top 500 William J. Clinton Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

402. “If we were being attached by space aliens, we wouldn’t be playing these kinds of games.”

— William J. Clinton

403. “I think we need to push harder, we the Democrats, because it’s an open door for the Republicans – prosperity centers.”

— William J. Clinton

404. “President Obama is going to have to run against himself. In tough times, nobody can defeat himself.”

— William J. Clinton

405. “Sometimes there is a difference in what is legal and what ought to be done.”

— William J. Clinton

406. “We’re going to build the bridge to the 21st century, we have to make our children free – free of the vise grip of guns and gangs and drugs; free to build lives of hope.”

— William J. Clinton

407. “I mean my life was a combination of fascination with other people, with politics, and with policy, and the impact of government decisions on people’s lives and the life of our nation and the life of the world.”

— William J. Clinton

408. “From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystified me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle class tax cut. I never did meet any voter who thought that.”

— William J. Clinton

409. “What happened to us in September, 2001, is a microcosmic but painful and powerful example of the fact we live in an inter-dependent world that is not yet an integrated global community.”

— William J. Clinton

410. “I challenge every business person in America who has ever complained about the failure of the welfare system to try to hire somebody off welfare. And try hard.”

— William J. Clinton

411. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

412. “I want a man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.”

— William J. Clinton

413. “Most of the major mistakes I made in my life, I made when I was too tired to know what I was doing – both personally and professionally.”

— William J. Clinton

414. “In the whole history of this country, we have probably won more friends from the power of our example than from the power of our military.”

— William J. Clinton

415. “What we did with deeming rules were designed – it was designed to keep costs from coming on to the government that should be borne by families of immigrants who actually have incomes and can afford to pay.”

— William J. Clinton

416. “I misled people, including even my wife.”

— William J. Clinton

417. “There’s a big conservative press unabashedly and for the Democrats and even people to the left of the Democratic party, there’s almost virtually no outlets that you can compare with the vast array of conservative press that’s out there.”

— William J. Clinton

418. “Our campaign is the opposite of ‘competence.’”

— William J. Clinton

419. “People should really take care when they vote, and pay more attention to what people say they’re going to do – instead of just how they feel about how things are going.”

— William J. Clinton

420. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

421. “You live in the age of interdependence. Borders don’t count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore.”

— William J. Clinton

422. “One of the things that I think we have learned is that we should all be very careful about making predictions about the future.”

— William J. Clinton

423. “Millions of people of color still experience racism daily.”

— William J. Clinton

424. “A few months ago, and again this week, bin Laden publicly vowed to publicly wage a terrorist war against America, saying, and I quote, “We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They’re all targets.” Their mission is murder, and their history is bloody.”

— William J. Clinton

425. “People ought to be going over this, finding things they don’t like. Congress has clearly proved they can act in a hurry. If there’s something wrong with it, it can be amended. If something needs to be kicked in, it can be put in. If something needs to be taken out, it can be taken out.”

— William J. Clinton

426. “President Obama’s record on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.”

— William J. Clinton

427. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

428. “When I was president, I knew exactly what I wanted to do every day to bring America together and create a greater sense of opportunity and a larger sense of responsibility and a stronger sense of community.”

— William J. Clinton

429. “If you think the President was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama.”

— William J. Clinton

430. “I refuse to be part of a generation that celebrates the death of communism abroad with the loss of the American dream at home.”

— William J. Clinton

431. “And I have a plan to do even better, to end welfare as we know it.”

— William J. Clinton

432. “If no one consumes these products, people will stop producing them. They will not build it if you don’t come.”

— William J. Clinton

433. “Saddam Hussein didn’t kill 3,100 people on Sept. 11. Osama bin Laden did, and as far as we know he’s still alive.”

— William J. Clinton

434. “I’m sure I spent more time in Texas than anybody else who had run for President recently.”

— William J. Clinton

435. “Over time, the more we bring China into the world, the more the world will bring freedom to China.”

— William J. Clinton

436. “Any poll is a picture of an unfinished horse race except the Election Day polls.”

— William J. Clinton

437. “I am committed to curbing the influence of money in our political system.”

— William J. Clinton

438. “The era of big government is over.”

— William J. Clinton

439. “Let me be clear: we are still a nation of immigrants, and we honor all those immigrants who are working hard to become new citizens.”

— William J. Clinton

440. “I am in support of the NRA position on gun control.”

— William J. Clinton

441. “President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me now. No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.”

— William J. Clinton

442. “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.”

— William J. Clinton

443. “We should pass a flex time law that allows employees to take their overtime pay in money or in time off, depending on what’s better for their family.”

— William J. Clinton

444. “When you’re president, you learn to act like you know what you’re talking about. And it’s a great skill.”

— William J. Clinton

445. “We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the First Amendment is all about.”

— William J. Clinton

446. “It simply doesn’t make any sense for us to have illegal aliens in our custody in our courts and then let them go back to living here illegally. That’s wrong and we should stop it.”

— William J. Clinton

447. “Our policy is guided by the principle that we will keep unauthorized aliens out of the United States, welcome legal immigrants, and protect refugees from harm. Our solutions rely on working in partnership with States and communities.”

— William J. Clinton

448. “I was also very concerned about protecting my family.”

— William J. Clinton

449. “For four years we’ve been cooperating exhaustively.”

— William J. Clinton

450. “President Obama’s approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.”

— William J. Clinton