If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business.

History has shown that a country most effectively speaks with one voice. When nationally elected officials work together, build consensus, and provide leadership, the American people will follow.

If America is to succeed in responding to these 21st Century challenges, our political system cannot continue to bog down in the mire of partisan gamesmanship.

Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning.

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

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.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

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

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

And this - this board was - was impanelled in 1951. And it's gone through ups and downs in how the secretaries have used it. But I have put a premium on that advisory board.

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

Most people do not really want others to have freedom of speech, they just want others to be given the freedom to say want they want to hear.

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.

There's an incredible comfort level that I have on film sets because it's where I've grown up.

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.

More and more, the Democrats are not merely inconsistent, wrong and/or misguided - they are the worst of all possible things you can be in Washington: irrelevant.

Failure may be cruel, but success is crueller still. The gods are usurers, you know; they lend to mortals, but they exact a desperate interest.

Don't put your confidence in big names When they die and return to the dirt they can't do anything for you.

Supermodels are over, and the new picture girl has become the television actress.

Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.