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Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton Quotes

Former United States Secretary of State

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Famous Hillary Clinton Quotes

“Yes, we've cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don't count for much if they're not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice - not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

“Americans need help understanding their world now more than ever. [TV] believes it's filled its obligation to the public because it's presented both sides. But most of what we're living through now has multiple sides, and those sides, if you take the extreme oppositional views, have to be brought together for people to make a decision about how to act on the information.”

“Relationships are at the core of any political system and economic system - any family - and I think we drifted away from understanding that in our country. The people-to-people level is critical. It is ironic, though - we can text with anybody in the world, we can have a videoconference with anybody in the world, but [there should be] an even higher premium on showing up and getting to know someone.”

“There are many ways to be influential. You can work for politicians or in government and make a difference. And for young women who are interested in running for office, you just have to decide you're going to follow Eleanor Roosevelt's maxim about growing skin as thick as the hide of a rhinoceros, and you have to be incredibly well-prepared - better prepared [than a man], actually - and you have to figure out how you're going to present yourself, and you have to have a support group around you, because it can be really a brutal experience.”

“I look for people who have raw intelligence and a great work ethic and loyalty, and I can quickly identify people who have the right ingredients. But sometimes it is more difficult to get them to accept the fact that they can take on increasing responsibility. Oftentimes individuals will decide how far [they] go by how much work they're willing to put in and how quick they are to ask for help. Too many people have this deep-seated fear that if they ask for help, they will be thought less of.”

“You know, we did a good job in containing the Soviet Union, but we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some things that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework about what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.”

“If you look at what the factors were going into the decision, of course there are competing interests and values. And one of our values is we bring everybody home off the battlefield the best we can. It doesn't matter how they ended up in a prisoner of war situation... It does not matter.”

“Recently in Washington, unfortunately, we have seen examples of the wrong kind of leadership -- when politicians choose scorched earth over common ground, when they operate in what I call the 'evidence-free zone,' with ideology trumping everything else.”

“There is one lesson from the past, in particular, that we cannot afford to ignore: You cannot make progress on gender equality or broader human development, without safeguarding women's reproductive health and rights.”