Joe Biden Quotations

Fighting corruption is not just good governance. It's self-defense. It's patriotism.

My dad always said, 'Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.'

One of the things I've never been accused of is not caring about people.

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

We Americans think, in every country in transition, there's a Thomas Jefferson hiding behind some rock or a James Madison beyond one sand dune.

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable,

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

When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn't be playing football.

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

The Chinese have figured out that they have a giant environmental problem. Folks in Beijing, some days, literally can't breathe. Over a million Chinese die prematurely every year because of air pollution.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It's because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand - demand - demand change.

In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking.

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.

My father used to have an expression. He'd say, 'Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in your community.'

Social Security's not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you've got to put all of it on the table.

A diplomatic solution that puts significant and verifiable constraints on Iran's nuclear program represents the best and most sustainable chance to ensure that America, Israel, the entire Middle East will never be menaced by a nuclear-armed Iran.

This is absolutely bizarre that we continue to subsidize highways beyond the gasoline tax, airlines, and we don't subsidize, we don't want to subsidize a national rail system that has environmental impact.

When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'

A gaffe in Washington is someone telling the truth, and telling the truth has never hurt me.

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.

One thing is clear: These weapons must be must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam must be dislodged from power,

No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised, whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax.

My dad used to have an expression - 'It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.'

I have a really close relationship with Mike Bloomberg.

I have an expression I use as I've gone around the world through my career: 'You never tell another man or woman what's in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.'

I do not understand the lack of a sense of urgency.

Go ahead and continue not to answer, ... His answers are misleading, with all due respect.

Global energy security is a vital part of America's national security.

Because our military power dwarfs that of other countries - we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined - this Administration believes that alliances and international institutions are more of a burden than a benefit. They allow the Lilliputians to tie down Gulliver.

Gonzales's nomination may very well do us more harm internationally because of his relationship with the terror memos and that is a different story.

There is no basic security ... It is bizarre! Absolutely bizarre!

He doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric, and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats, ... This Week.

I say that everything has to be on the table,

... Judge, she (Ginsburg) specifically, in response to a question whether or not she agreed with the majority or minority opinion in Moore v. the City of Cleveland said explicitly: I agree with the majority, and here's what the majority said and I agree with it. My question to you is: Do you agree with it or not?

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

I think if I had this evidence before a jury, I could get a conviction,

I think we have a six-month window here to get it right. But I have to admit that I think the chances are not a lot better than 50-50.

I think it gives suits and not the turbans -- the way it's referred to in the Shiite sector -- an opportunity to make their case that they have to, in fact, bring in specifically Sunnis into the Cabinet, ... Fox News Sunday.

The Qataris have cut off support for the most extreme elements of terrorist organizations.

The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand.

We have two national emergencies, ... One relates to our interest in Iraq and the other in the Gulf, and I don't think you can take from one to deal with the other.

Most Americans think there's already universal background checks. They don't understand why there wouldn't be a background check to purchase a weapon.

Methamphetamine causes much more destruction in a much shorter period of time,

We're close friends - the American people, the Israeli people, our governments. There's absolutely no daylight - none - between us and the Israelis on the question of Israel's security.

... We're either going to share the cost with everyone, including the wealthiest among us by foregoing the tax cuts for the wealthiest, or we're going to put all the burden on the middle class.... We don't have to go forward with further tax cuts for the wealthy. There's a $70 billion tax cut in this particular budget. Permanently eliminating the estate-tax cut is a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Maybe we have to forgo those for the time being.

We are rolling the dice with you, judge,

We are willing to vote 10 minutes after we get back in session if in fact they provide the information -- information that Mr. Bolton's staff had access to that they will not give to the majority leader of the United States Senate.

We're rolling the dice with you, judge, ... Talk to me as a father.

When we were in the Balkans, we, in fact, dealt with the Croats as well as the Serbs according to the Dayton accords...

Whether we will have ever increasing protections for human liberty and dignity, or whether those protections will be diminished.

We didn't crumble after 9/11. We didn't falter after the Boston Marathon. But we're America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

Unions did in fact build the middle class. And here's what that did. That built the United States of America as we know it.

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras have all agreed to send additional consular officers from Guatemala, from Honduras, from El Salvador, send them to the U.S. border so that we can more quickly and humanely identify unaccompanied children and process their individual removal.

Don't hold against me that I don't own - that I don't own a single stock or bond. Don't hold it - I have no savings accounts.

continue to mislead the American people about the state of affairs. And it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly dangerous.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

ISIS is not an existential threat to something happening to someone in the United States of America. It's a serious problem overseas, but it's confusing and frightening.

I used to say to my late wife, 'I have great faith in the American people.'

I've been waiting over 40 years to come to Cyprus, and it has not disappointed - the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Crossroads of Civilization, and, I might add, a genuine strategic partner to the United States of America.

You are one of the best witnesses, I think, that has come before this committee. You've convinced folks who share Senator Brownback's view that you're going to be just right for them and you've convinced folks that share Senator Kennedy's view that you're just right for them.

You are twice as likely to be struck by lightning as you around to be affected by a terrorist event in the United States.

The single most important thing we have to be doing now is make sure that training is on target and that they have the capacity to govern.

When you go to your local police officer, your police chief in the town you live in, big or small, he will tell you the vast majority of the weapons recovered at a crime scene are either stolen weapons, and/or they have been 'lost' or stolen.

What they gain is not having to tell the American people the truth.

We don't want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

We all have a right to know where she stands on these basic issues. And I hope this puts to bed this notion that it's not a legitimate thing for the United States Congress to find out where a nominee stands on the fundamental constitutional questions facing her.

There is no inherent power in the office of the vice presidency. Zero. None. It's all a reflection of your relationship with the president. I mean, Kennedy never let Johnson in the office.

The original power given to them was assuming that it would be used with discretion, ... Thirty thousand seems like an awful, awful stretch to me.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

People everywhere in the world are hungry for economic opportunity. And it's about a lot more than being able to make money.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has, as Minister Livni knows, has been my friend for over 30 years. We drive each other crazy. But he has truly been a personal friend for well over 30 years. He acknowledged this.

Two million felons have tried to buy a gun and, because of the background check, have been denied.

The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.

Now I hope our French and German and other allies step up to the ball and are as magnanimous in acknowledging what we have to do now as the president was.

Nowhere is it written that there must be conflict between the United States and China.

You should be attacking the carbon emissions, period, and whether it's cap-and-trade or carbon tax or whatever, that's the realm in which we should be playing.

That's what I want to know about, because without any knowledge of your understanding of the law, because you will not share it with us, we are rolling the dice with you, Judge.

That's if we do it to you. Go ahead. Go ahead and continue not to answer.

They still have no concrete plan as to how we're going to proceed other than hope and pray that this constitution is accepted by the Iraqi people, which seems to me like a tough bet.

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

Romania can be a linchpin in delivering gas to its neighbors and even become an energy exporter for its neighbors across Central and Eastern Europe.

Saudi Arabia has allowed training on its soil of American forces.

People should not be in a position where their children have access to weapons and ammunition.

The only thing I know is I ain't changing my brand. I know what I believe. I'm confident in what I know. And I'm gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don't like it, I understand.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it's funny. And it's not funny. It's not.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

The United States, to state the obvious, is greatly concerned by the startling number of unaccompanied minors that - children and teenagers who are making a very perilous journey through Central America to reach the United States.

This combination of benchmarks and regular public accountability would go a long way toward convincing the American people that they are getting the facts in Iraq and that we have a strategy for success.

You not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but in my view, you should not answer.

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it's open season on anybody who stutters.

In my heart, I'm confident I could make a good president.

I mean it's basic block and tackle stuff, ... There's not sufficient cops, sufficient fencing, sufficient cameras. It is just criminal.

I guess every single word I've ever said is going to be dissected now.

I have no doubt that Russia will and should remain a major source of energy supplies for Europe and the world.

In Romania, American forces have found a devoted NATO ally.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.