Presumptuous for me to say, but at least – at a minimum – I’ve been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I’ve been relatively – presumptuous to say – relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.

For somebody who loves foreign policy, being Secretary is the best job in the world – but it doesn’t happen twice.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee – working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families.

The U.S. has strategic and economic interests in Southeast Asia that must be secured. Holding Indochina is essential to securing these interests. Therefore, we must hold Indochina.

I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women’s issues to the center of our foreign policy.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility to act.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

I was warped early by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe. I was very fond of Franz Kafka.

I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

People that’s in power – the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally – they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.

I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the ’60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it’s mad that people like me are listened to – you know, rap stars and movie stars.

The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

When I was 8 years old, it mattered what my favorite singer said and wore and expressed opinions about.

No honest writer today can possibly avoid being influenced by Freud through his pioneering work into the Unconscious and by the influence of those discoveries on the scientific, philosophic, and artistic work of his contemporaries: but not, by any means, necessarily through Freud’s own writing.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

It’s nice to say let’s be bipartisan. But we’re a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

Married or single, you sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition you have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate your unique influence.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.

I had very good support from Democrats and Republicans all throughout my administration. I had a very high batting average. We added more jobs per year in my four years than any other president since the Second World War.

There was a time Michael Jackson couldn’t get his video on MTV because he was considered to be ‚urban.‘ The Michael Jackson. So I literally have to be the Michael Jackson of apparel in order to break down the doors for everyone who will come after I’m gone, after I’m dead.

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

Power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

I have kind of a funny relationship with movies. I don’t have to see the whole movie to get an impression of it or to let it have an influence on me.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.