Joe Biden Quotes

62 Sourced Quotes

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

Joe Biden
I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.

Joe Biden
I wasn't built to look the other way because the law demanded it. The law might be wrong.

Joe Biden
It is an exciting and dangerous time, for this generation of Americans has the opportunity so rarely granted to others by fate and history. We literally have the chance to shape the future - to put our own stamp on the face and character of America, to bend history just a little bit.

Joe Biden
I knew I had to be sure-footed about the issues I was talking about. When you're twenty-nine years old, who the hell is going to think you're credible? It wasn't enough to have ideas; I had to know my facts. I had to demonstrate command from the minute I started running. I understood that was the test I had to pass.

Joe Biden
I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.

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

Joe Biden
No President of the United States could represent the United States were he not committed to human rights. If you don't understand this, you can't deal with us. President Barack Obama would not be able to stay in power if he did not speak of it. So look at it as a political imperative. It doesn't make us better or worse. It's who we are. You make your decisions. We'll make ours.

Joe Biden
Most of all I was numb, but there were moments when the pain cut through like a shard of broken glass. I began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in; how suicide wasn't just an option but a rational option.

Joe Biden
These were al-Qaeda fighters, the first I'd ever seen up close, and they looked like badasses. As I passed on the outskirts of the grid, many of the prisoners stared directly at me. None of them cowered. I've been in a lot of prisons, but these guys showed a ferocity and a hatred unlike any I'd ever seen.

Joe Biden
I'm not exploring. I'm in. And this is the beginning of a marathon

Joe Biden
Alan Cranston understood power not as a reflection of status but as a tool with a purpose.

Joe Biden
I'm running for president because I think that, with a lot of help, I can stem the tide of this slide and restore America's leadership in the world and change our priorities. I will argue that my experience and my track record — both on the foreign and domestic side — put me in a position to be able to do that.

Joe Biden
No matter how well intended our country is, we cannot expect other nations to trust us as much as we trust ourselves.

Joe Biden
The fabric of our complex society is woven too tightly to permit any part of it to be damaged without damaging the whole.

Joe Biden
Rudy Giuliani — there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11.

Joe Biden
We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street'. They're going to put y'all back in chains.

Joe Biden
I think I instinctively understood that my most important duty was to be a target. People were desperate to vent their anger, and if they could yell at a united States senator, all the better. Part of being a public servant, I came to understand in 1978, was absorbing the anger of people who don't know where to turn. If I couldn't solve the problem for them, I had to at least be an outlet.

Joe Biden
For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: 'I've got mine, so why don't you get yours' and 'What's in it for me?'

Joe Biden
Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.

Joe Biden
Look, I am Vice President of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that.

Joe Biden
Make sure of two things. Be careful — microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, D. C., a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful.

Joe Biden
A better man might have handled the situation with more grace than I did. A better man would have been able to separate his personal life from his career.

Joe Biden
The one thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I was an athlete. The hell with the rest of this stuff.

Joe Biden
The standard of judgment is no longer results but the flickering image of seriousness, skillfully crafted to squeeze into 30 seconds on the nightly news. In this world, emotion has become suspect - the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and passionless.

Joe Biden