Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person’s God-given potential.
My Fox guys, I love every single one of them.
Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.
I never much cared for politics. I love policy, and I love international policy in particular. I got to be Secretary of State; it really doesn’t get much better than that. I love what I do. I love being a professor.
I’ve never really been a workaholic. I work very hard, but I also enjoy playing. I think it’s important to have a balanced and well-rounded life.
To see an African-American elected president means that this country is really finally coming full circle from the birth defect of slavery.
When you’re in government, of course, you have protection and you have people who are looking out for your wellbeing, but you can’t live in a state of fear. If you do, you’re not going to do your job very well and you’re going to give yourself high blood pressure, which probably isn’t worth it.
People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they’ll join your side.
Once a month I play with a chamber music quartet. I play almost no solo music anymore because I so enjoy the interaction. The members of my quartet have become some of my best friends and so I really enjoy it now in ways that I didn’t before.
This is the democratic process at work, What you’re seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy.
My job is to try to advance American foreign policy, to try to advance the president’s agenda on democracy and human rights.
We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.
The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil the better.
For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.
Everyone wants Russia to be a prosperous, democratic state that is fully integrated.
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed.
When are we going to stop making excuses for the terrorists and saying that somebody is making them do it? No, these are simply evil people who want to kill.
I’m a terrible long-term planner.
In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.
Today’s headlines and history’s judgement are not the same.