John F. Kerry
I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.Collection: Patriotism
Climate change, if unchecked, is an urgent threat to health, food supplies, biodiversity, and livelihoods across the globe.Collection: Health
NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.Collection: Future
Young people have so much more power than they tend to think to be able to affect politics. And if people will organize and get involved and go out and knock on doors and hand out leaflets and make a change, then they can determine the future.Collection: Politics
I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important.Collection: Poetry
It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.
The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country, not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans.
I'm a person who has always believed that you tell people the truth, and they'll make reasonable decisions. Truth is powerful.
Democracy relies on free speech. Yes, say anything you want, but it relies even more on the speech being truthful. It is the truth, after all, that sets us free.
It's not enough for one country or even a few countries to reduce emissions when other countries continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon pollution as they see fit.
I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I'd like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people's lives.
When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.
Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class.
I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.
We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.
The consequences of a crime should not be out of proportion to the crime itself.
Republican secretaries of state from Kissinger to Baker, Powell to Rice, President Bush, 71 United States Senators all supported President Obama's new START treaty, but not Mitt Romney.
President Obama has made it his mission that we welcome our troops home with care and concern and the respect they deserve. That is how an exceptional nation says thank you to its most exceptional men and women.
Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama.
Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries intersecting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.
I think George Mitchell is a consummate professional. He is the ideal selection to handle the job of special envoy if you choose to have a special envoy.
I love to play guitar and hack around. I was in a band when I was in high school. I never learned to play very well, but I enjoyed it.
If you've ever played golf, you know that you yell 'fore' off the tee. You're not threatening somebody; you're warning them: 'Look, don't get hit by the ball, it's coming.'
The bottom line is that the impacts of climate change can exacerbate resource competition, threaten livelihoods, and increase the risk of instability and conflict, especially in places already undergoing economic, political, and social stress.
You can't let concerns stop you; they drive you and they motivate you.
War should be not a war of choice; it should be a war of necessity. And it should be a last resort.
I think, in the long run, we have to wean ourselves from a carbon-based economy. We absolutely have to.
The Paris Agreement's going to continue without the United States of America.
You just don't, in the 21st century, behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.
If we don't preserve the oceans from nitrate runoff and plastic and chemicals, and if we don't preserve it from acidification, and if we don't preserve it from grotesque overfishing - too much money chasing too few fish - we're going to have the most massive ecosystem on the planet in peril.
I have been passionate about the oceans since I dipped my toes in the water at the first age of three.
I went into the Navy because I love the ocean, and I am still privileged to have a place that I can go to that's by the water.
The most powerful Vietnam movie, to me, was 'The Deer Hunter,' which was more about what happened to the folks who went and about their relationships.
One of the most cherished photographs in my life is a picture of me with John Lennon - who I met back in 1971 at an anti-war rally.
My favorite album is 'Abbey Road.' I love 'Hey Jude.'
I am committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct for government officials.
For sure, there are times when one may have no choice but to go to war, but it is never something to rush to or accept without exploring every other available option.
It's not normal that, when you close your eyes and listen to the news, too often the political back-and-forth in America sounds too much like it does in the kinds of countries that the State Department warns Americans not to travel to.
In the time I've spent in public life, one of the things I've learned is that some issues look a lot different when you're actually in office compared to when you're on the campaign trail.
The solution to climate change is staring us in the face. It's energy policy. If we pursue a global clean-energy economy, we can cut dramatically the amount of carbon pollution we emit into the atmosphere and prevent the worst impacts of climate change.
In 1970, as a 26 year-old, I joined in the effort in my home state of Massachusetts to organize for Earth Day. But what made the event so successful was that I was only one of about 20 million Americans of all ages and backgrounds who got involved.
In the 1950s and '60s, America's natural resources were in bad shape. Communities were so polluted that clouds of smog lingered over cities like Los Angeles. Rivers and lakes were filled with chemicals. In my hometown of Boston, the harbor was among the nation's most polluted waterways.
President Obama and I both believe we don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.
Think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-all challenges that know no borders-the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.Collection: Thinking
Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They're about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for.Collection: Fighting
We need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize - women have the right to choose - and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation.Collection: Rights
When the nations of the world look upon the United States, they see a country which has achieved what they would all like to become one day. Whether it is in the field of science, art, music, agriculture, politics, economics or war, the United States is the leader.Collection: Country
The hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are yet to come.Collection: Optimism
Climate change is real. The science is compelling. And the longer we wait, the harder the problem will be to solve.Collection: Real