Joe Biden

Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’. The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.

The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.

I believe the measure of a man isn’t just the road he’s traveled; it’s the choices he’s made along the way.

You get a lawyer whether you’re in a military tribunal or whether you’re in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest – with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

There will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son, or daughter, or your wife or your husband, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner than later.

Why does the world dislike Russia? I do not think that we are unloved or considered to be ignorant.

The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction – chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability – that threat is real.

It’s only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it’s not terrorism.

You should never be so high and mighty you can’t listen to somebody else and learn something from them. Leadership is as much about using the ear as using the mouth.

The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate.

Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish army

There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.

The American Petroleum Institute, backed by the Chamber of Commerce and the other business lobbies, has intensified its efforts to persuade the public to dismiss concerns about anthropogenic global warming – with considerable success, as polls indicate.

I thought being President would be easier than my old life.

State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.

The bankruptcy of the Democrat elite is well-illustrated by the obsession with alleged Russian meddling with our sacred elections. Whatever it might amount to – apparently very little – it cannot begin to compare with the “meddling” of campaign funding…

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used, not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists.

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.

China is a great country with a great culture, populated by fascinating, industrious and talented people.

People tend to rally around power.