Events often move faster than our ability to comprehend them.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

When you're talking with a person at this level of the government, at the very highest level, I think you have to be very discreet because he, President Clinton, is very aware that anything he says publicly can have a profound impact on American politics and on world politics.

So much of our attention is trained on the Middle East these days, but we cannot ignore East Asia.

China's ability to deliver nuclear warheads on American cities is expanding.

Foreign aid is neither a failure nor a panacea. It is, instead, an important tool of American policy that can serve the interests of the United States and the world if wisely administered.

Protecting Americans from nuclear terrorism rises above politics.

We cannot do everything in Africa, but doing nothing is not an option.

Democracy makes us articulate our views, defend them, and refine them.

The temptations are great to simply retreat to the domain of private life and give up on our public problems.

Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving.

Putting together a counter- terrorism policy, it's very easy to look at law enforcement or defense, military action or stopping the money flows or whatever, but the really difficult part is integrating all aspects of the policy, and I think she put a lot of emphasis on that.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.

Aid can work where there is good governance, and usually fails where governments are unable or unwilling to commit aid to improve the lives of their people.

The U.S. should support the historic Gaza withdrawal as a first step toward a final settlement: a permanent Palestinian state in Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank.

The U.S has acquired reservoirs of goodwill around the globe over many years. But it is clear - from polling data and ample anecdotal evidence - that America is losing its allure in much of the world.

Now the difficulty with those warnings is that they were not specific.

For decades the American people have had an addiction to oil and gas.

Democracy fascinates me.

Events often move faster than our ability to comprehend them.

President George W. Bush is the first American president to call openly for two-states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

You'll remember Dr. Rice said that several times: It was not a warning about the place and the method and the time - it was a general warning. And that points out the imperfection, if you would, of our intelligence.

Addressing global resentment cannot be put off. If we do not learn to use our predominant power with great restraint, we will antagonize the world.

One half of the world's people live on less than two dollars a day. This should concern our national security policy as well as our conscience.

But in the end our government usually - not unfailingly - is responsive to the people; and usually - not always - will try to do what is right.

This nation is never finished. It has to be re-created in each generation.

But despite this breathtaking pace, I believe in the capacity of our democracy to meet these challenges.

U.S. officials and outside experts agree that China is undertaking a comprehensive modernization of its military. The Chinese military has gotten smaller but smarter.

A likely source for terrorists seeking to buy or steal nuclear materials is the former Soviet Union.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Never underestimate a child's ability to get into more trouble.

We have developed this unbelievable ability to deny. We have to. If we didn't, we'd go crazy.

To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

Handcuffing the ability of states and localities to develop clean fuels in the cheapest possible way, using local resources, is not sound or sensible policy.

I realised from a very early age that God gave me a gift, and that gift was to run, and I wanted to use it to the best of my ability.

My vocal ability is very limited, but I'm fortunate in that I can write the songs around my vocal limitations.

The key to Operations at Wal-Mart is their ability to maintain the highest standards while at the same time getting things done with lockstep execution.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

The Stones are a different kind of group. I realized that when I joined them. It's not really so much their musical ability, it's just they have a certain kind of style and attitude which is unique.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn't want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

We have the most flexible and adaptive economy. Making sure we sustain the ability of the American economy to perform well is really the priority of economic policy.

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives.

Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

Get that right, then- if you get the quality right, then the marketability or whatever; your ability to sell videos or your ability to earn money or whatever, will follow naturally. But try to be creatively lead rather than market lead. And that's important to me.

You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture.

I ask the American people to consider the legacy this administration has handed us in the defense budget as we spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars without the tools and ability to track these dollars.