Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform.

I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.

Our foreign policy needs to support our energy, economic, defense and domestic policies. It all falls within the arch of national interest. There will be windows of opportunity, but they will open and close quickly.

You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

Foreign policy will require a strategic agility that, whenever possible, gets ahead of problems, strengthens U.S. security and alliances, and promotes American interests and credibility.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

I have said many times that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.

I would not trade America's position in the world - our ledger, our debts and assets - for any country in the world. There isn't a country in the world even close to America.

I'm a supporter of Israel, always have been.

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world, that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together, and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests.

Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.

No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record.

Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn't come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.

People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.

The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.

Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.

We live in a world where there are dangerous people, there are bad people.

Well, Mr Obama inherited probably the biggest inventory of problems, certainly foreign policy problems, than any American president ever has. I think the entire inventory of problems that he inherited is probably as big overall as any president, certainly since Franklin Roosevelt and maybe, in some cases, worse.

When I came to the Senate in 1997, the world was being redefined by forces no single country controlled or understood. The implosion of the Soviet Union and a historic diffusion of economic and geopolitical power created new influences and established new global power centers - and new threats.

When you're dealing in situations that are uncontrollable and combustible, you try to stabilize the situation as quickly as you can and then work toward and work out toward democratic reform.

The most profound, tangible influence in my life has been my wife, Monique. I don't know that I would even be alive were it not for her, and I certainly would not be the person that I am today.

I don't know how much influence we really had, because we never put our pictures on the albums or anything and we never really promoted the Talking Heads connection, because we wanted to keep it separate from Talking Heads.

My life would have been different without Paul Stanley or Ace Frehley. They would have to be the greatest on my list as an influence to my life at 11 years old.

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

I was on Oprah's show recently talking about the people who impacted me the most. One was a teacher and one was my soccer coach. I didn't even go into my family, who had the most influence.

The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.

There are a couple of teachers I have had without whose influence I would not be as happy with who I am.

It's definitely an influence, I mean how can you not say you are influenced to play rock.

When I started out, I preferred to watch my films without music, as its presence tends to mask the underlying pace of the film. I felt I could feel the rhythm of the film better without music to influence me.

The orbs create feedback loops that can influence either personal of employee behavior.

Today America lost a great elder statesman, a committed public servant, and leader of the Senate. And today I lost a treasured friend. Ted Kennedy was an iconic, larger than life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated. Many have come before, and many will come after, but Ted Kennedy's name will always be remembered as someone who lived and breathed the United States Senate and the work completed within its chamber.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.

We influence singing but never really songwriting.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

However, it does seem now that the international community, more importantly the powers that have influence, and, even more importantly, Afghanistan's neighbors realize that it is high time that they work together, and not against one another.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell, where his influence stops.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.

We know that communication must be hampered, and its form largely determined, by the unconscious but inevitable influence of a transmitting mechanism, whether that be of a merely mechanical or of a physiological character.

But, I would be naive not to recognize the number of musicians who tell me they have been influenced by me and sight me - as well as Alex and Neil - as a musician who has been a positive influence on their playing.

After all is said that can be said upon the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading upon the individual, the family, politics and business, and upon everything that you touch in this old world.