William Jefferson Clinton is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to his presidency, he served as governor of Arkansas and as attorney general of Arkansas. Profoundly inspirational Bill Clinton quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
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Famous Bill Clinton Quotes
If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit. J. Clinton
We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more. Bill Clinton
Character is a journey, not a destination. William J. Clinton
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. Bill Clinton
When we make college more affordable, we make the American dream more achievable. William J. Clinton
When our memories outweigh our dreams, it is then that we become old. Bill Clinton
Being president is like running a cemetery you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening. William J. Clinton
If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit. Bill Clinton
I still believe in a place called Hope. William J. Clinton
The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it. Between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past. Between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists. Bill Clinton
The 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime. William J. Clinton
Being President is like being the groundskeeper in a cemetery there are a lot of people under you, but none of them are listening. Bill Clinton
A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self serving. I hope mine is interesting and self serving. William J. Clinton
If you want to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat. Bill Clinton
You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. William J. Clinton
People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power. Bill Clinton
It’s heartbreaking to see so many people trapped in a web of enforced idleness, deep debt, and gnawing self doubt. William J. Clinton
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. Bill Clinton
If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama. William J. Clinton
We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs. Bill Clinton
I want American Dream growth lots of new businesses, well paying jobs, and American leadership in new industries, like clean energy and biotechnology. William J. Clinton
A man is more than the sum of all the things he can do. Bill Clinton
You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well being and that of your family and your country. William J. Clinton
Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. Bill Clinton
Let me say this as clearly as I can No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents. William J. Clinton
I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Bill Clinton
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. William J. Clinton
Our democracy cannot survive its current downward drift into tribalism, extremism, and seething resentment. Today it’s us versus them in America. Politics is little more than blood sport. As a result, our willingness to believe the worst about everyone outside our own bubble is growing, and our ability to solve problems and seize opportunities is shrinking. We have to do better. We have honest differences. We need vigorous debates. Healthy skepticism is good. It saves us from being too naive or too cynical. But it is impossible to preserve democracy when the well of trust runs completely dry. Bill Clinton
My plan after office is to get up and spend that entire first day helping my wife move into her new senatorial office. William J. Clinton
In other words, our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. There’s a big difference. You can have a philosophy that tends to be liberal or conservative but still be open to evidence, experience, and argument. That enables people with honest differences to find practical, principled compromise. On the other hand, fervent insistence on an ideology makes evidence, experience, and arguments irrelevant If you possess the absolute truth, those who disagree are by definition wrong, and evidence of success or failure is irrelevant. There is nothing to learn from the experience of other countries. Respectful arguments are a waste of time. Compromise is weakness. And if your policies fail, you don’t abandon them; instead, you double down, asserting that they would have worked if only they had been carried to their logical extreme. Bill Clinton
I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution. William J. Clinton
You can put wings on a pig, but that doesn’t make it an eagle. Bill Clinton
One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line. William J. Clinton
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. Bill Clinton
The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we’d have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense. William J. Clinton
If one candidate is appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you’d better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope! Bill Clinton
Where are the jobs going to come from? Small business, manufacturing and clean energy. Where’s the money to finance them? The banks and the corporations in America today have lots of money that they can invest right now. William J. Clinton
The media knows what sells conflict and division. It’s also quick and easy. All too often anger works better than answers; resentment better than reason; emotion trumps evidence. A sanctimonious, sneering one liner, no matter how bogus, is seen as straight talk, while a calm, well argued response is seen as canned and phony. Bill Clinton
When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody’s right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. William J. Clinton
They should be impressed by the power of our example, not the example of our power. Bill Clinton
When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama Administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20%. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform’s work requirement is just not true. William J. Clinton
If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person. Bill Clinton
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
We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more. Bill Clinton
You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle. William J. Clinton
That’s the permanent mission our Founding Fathers left us moving toward the more perfect union. Bill Clinton
It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us. William J. Clinton
When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale. Bill Clinton
I am in support of the NRA position on gun control. William J. Clinton
When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old. Bill Clinton
Hillary will make us stronger together. You know it because she’s spent a lifetime doing it. William J. Clinton
Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. Bill Clinton
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
He didn’t say a word or do an action that did not have a purpose. Bill Clinton
Today, many companies are reporting that their number one constraint on growth is the inability to hire workers with the necessary skills. William J. Clinton
Gerald Ford once said that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives says it is. Bill Clinton
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
Scholars call this false equivalency. It means that when you find a mountain to expose in one person or party, you have to pick a molehill on the other side and make it into a mountain to avoid being accused of bias. The built up molehills also have large benefits increased coverage on the evening news, millions of retweets, and more talk show fodder. When the mountains and molehills all look the same, campaigns and governments devote too little time and energy debating the issues that matter most to our people. Even when we try to do that, we’re often drowned out by the passion of the day. Bill Clinton
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
That depends on what your definition of is. Bill Clinton
Part of our essential humanity is paying respect to what God gave us and what will be here a long time after we’re gone. William J. Clinton
Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it’s the time when they most need to think. William J. Clinton
Strength and wisdom are not opposing values. William J. Clinton
How’ve you been feeling? I have a gigantic pain in my ass, I say. Can you look and see if the Speaker of the House is up there? Bill Clinton
In 1979, just after I became governor, I asked Hillary to chair a rural health committee to help expand health care to isolated farm and mountain areas. They recommended to do that partly by deploying trained nurse practitioners in places with no doctors to provide primary care they were trained to provide. William J. Clinton
All too often, those who rail against them prevail over earnest pleas to remember what we can be and do together. Our brains have worked this way for a long time. Maybe they always will. But we have to keep trying. That’s the permanent mission our Founding Fathers left us moving toward the “more perfect union. Bill Clinton
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. William J. Clinton
We’re using modern technology to revert to primitive kinds of human relations. Bill Clinton
American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted. William J. Clinton
All too often anger works better than answers; resentment better than reason; emotion trumps evidence. A sanctimonious, sneering one liner, no matter how bogus, is seen as straight talk, while a calm, well argued response is seen as canned and phony. Bill Clinton