Joe Biden Quotes

Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value.

So I try to be mindful, at all times, of what a difference a small human gesture can make to people in need. What does it really cost to take a moment to look someone in the eye, to give him a hug, to let her know, I get it. You’re not alone?

Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. —Immanuel Kant

The time will come when [his] memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes.

if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge.

True bravery is when there is very little chance of winning, but you keep fighting.

Israel has no better friend than Joe Biden

If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.

There will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son, or daughter, or your wife or your husband, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner than later.

My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.

Funerals are for the living, I have always believed, and the job of the eulogist is to acknowledge the enormity of the loss they have just suffered and to help them appreciate that the legacy and accomplishments of their loved one have not died with them.

My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up. I made a pledge to myself that I would get up and emerge from this debacle better for having gone through it. I would live up to the expectation I had for myself. I would be the kind of man I wanted to be.

Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot.

Nothing we're going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting...

But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common...

We Irish are the only people in the world who are actually nostalgic about the future.

Jeannie is Bill Clinton, and I am Al Gore. She “feels their pain,” and I’m the dork reminding them to turn off the lights. I’m always Joe Biden saying the wrong thing.

LBJ and the racist history of the Democrat Party can help us understand how it is plausible that Joe Biden, a well-known and well-respected politician, managed to get away with citing Robert Byrd, a West Virginia senator who had previously held the position of Exalted Cyclops within the Ku Klux Klan, as his mentor.

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?

And I want a woman in that seat. Whether it’s Alan Dixon or Joe Biden or George Bush, I’m so tired of these idiot men getting to make up the rules for the rest of us. They’re not smarter. They’re not nicer. They don’t have better judgment. They’re just men.

And if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge. Each side has to be willing to try to understand the concerns of the other.

The senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour. Hubert Humphrey, as quoted by Biden, p. 134

I believe all Americans are born with certain inalienable rights. As a child of God, I believe my rights are not derived from the constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator, and they represent the essence of human dignity...

To me this is the first principle of life, the foundational principle, and a lesson you can't learn at the foot of any wise man: Get up! The art of living is simply getting up after you've been knocked down.

Milley believed January 6 was a planned, coordinated, synchronized attack on the very heart of American democracy, designed to overthrow the government to prevent the constitutional certification of a legitimate election won by Joe Biden.

My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not denied by any majority. My rights are because I exist.

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

History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.

Poor kids are just as smart as white kids” - Joe Biden

There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11.

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

This can happen again. This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.

I kept trying to tell people that just because I was young didn't mean I could speak for all young people.

Candor generates trust. Trust is the basis on which real change, constructive change, is made.

The sheepish will vote for Joe Biden and those against government and corporate corruption will vote for Bernie Sanders.

So how do I want to spend the rest of my life? I want to spend as much time as I can with my family, and I want to help change the country and the world for the better. That duty does much more than give me purpose; it gives me something to hope for. It makes me nostalgic for the future.

you should not run for president because tactically you can win. The questions you have to ask are why you're running for president and what will you do when you are president. You shouldn't run until you know the answers to those questions.

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.

One of my colleagues in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once made this simple but profound observation about us Irish: “To fail to understand that life is going to knock you down is to fail to understand the Irishness of life.

Folks, I can tell you I've known eight presidents, three of them intimately

A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States — Barack America!

(On Barack Obama) "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.

I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There's no shame in being tested for AIDS. It's an important thing.

I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you.

Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya.

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me.

The more people learn about them (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) and how they handle the pressure, the more their support will evaporate.

Senator John Stennis: The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man. ... It freed my soul.

Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.

He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future. ‘Run for governor. Have a purpose.’ Almost every day after that, I found myself acting on that advice - have a purpose. No matter what came at me, I held fast to my own sense of purpose.

His mom lived in Long Island for ten years or so. God rest her soul. And- although, she's- wait- your mom's still- your mom's still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul." --Joe Biden, on the mother of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who is very much alive, Washington, D.C., March 17, 2010

When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” Joe Sr. had written to his friend. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world

We must have public officials who will stand up and tell the people exactly what they think... Our failure in recent years has not been the failure of the people to meet the challenges placed before them, but rather the failure of both our great political parties to place those challenges honestly and courageously before the people, and to trust the willingness of the people to do the things that really need to be done.

While it did not break down the data by religious affiliation, an NPR analysis in December 2021 found that counties that voted heavily for Trump experienced COVID death rates nearly three times higher than those that voted heavily for Joe Biden32—a grim illustration of the dangers of making decisions based on a set of “alternative facts.

Acknowledging that a woman's right to be safe from a gender-based attack was a "civil right," I believed, was critically important in changing the American consciousness. When a right reaches the status and categorization of a "civil right," it means the nation has arrived at a consensus that is nonnegotiable. Violence against women would no longer be written off ... Once our criminal justice system -- at the local, state and federal levels -- recognized these as serious and inexcusable crimes, women could stop blaming themselves.

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.

This is a big fucking deal!

I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off.

And don’t any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican. I’m not supposed to say, this isn’t political. …don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack!

Ya know, Joey,’ Uncle Ed would say, ‘there’s no accountin’ for horses’ asses.

We should not let this disease take over our entire existence. He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future: “Run for governor. Have a purpose.

This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.

somewhere along the way I had begun to look up to my own sons.

Reality has a way of intruding.

And then in this huge, booming voice, God warned me that I should never fucking change. Ever.

The only way I survived, the only way I got through it, was by staying busy and keeping my mind, when it can be, focused on my job.

Humans were capable of incredible cruelty, our father wanted me, my sister, and my brothers to understand. And just as dangerous, he made us see, human beings were also capable of looking the other way and remaining silent when awful things were happening all around them.

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.

Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.

Dad. Look at me. Look at me, Dad. Remember, Dad. Home base, Dad. Home base.” What he was saying was: Remember who you are. Remember what matters. Stay true to your ideals. Be courageous.

Right now, you know, everyone one is going to be there for you." I explained. "Everyone will surround you with love and you'll be busy and have things to keep your mind off the worst. And then in six weeks, or may be twelve weeks, everybody else's life is going to start to get back to normal. But your life isn't going to be normal again. As a matter of fact, as you probably understand already, it's going to get harder for you. And after a while you're going to start feeling guilty because you're going to be going to the same people constantly for help, or just to talk. And as their lives get back to normal, you going to start to worry about leaning on them too much. There might come a time when you think, I'm asking too much. I've got to stop complaining. So when you're down and you feel guilty for burdening your family and friends," I said, "pick up the phone and call 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.

The conservatives could sneer about "social engineering" if they wanted, but I thought that most people believed as I did that government should embody our best hopes and lend a hand to people who were struggling.

America is the promised land, because each generation bequeathed to its children a promise, a promise that they might not come to enjoy but which they fully expected their offspring to fulfill. So the words 'all men are created equal' took a life of its own, ultimately destined to end slavery and enfranchise women. And the words 'equal protection' and 'due process' inevitably led to the end of the words 'separate but equal,' ensuring that the walls of segregation would crumble, whether at the lunch counter or at the voting booth.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

then headed off separately to face their days—as I supposed thousands of husbands and wives all over the city did every morning. I just turned and looked at my dad for an explanation. “Joey, it’s simple,” my dad told me. “They love each other.

Republicans also screamed bloody murder about the censorship by social media platforms of conservative voices and negative news stories about Democrats. They were horrified by a media complex that moved from extreme partisan bias to unabashed propaganda in defense of the Democratic Party. They watched as a completely legitimate story about international corruption involving the Biden family business—and implicating Joe Biden himself—was crushed by media and tech companies colluding to suppress it.

The election of Obama was a profoundly unserious act by an unserious nation, and, if you were Putin, the ChiComs, or the ayatollahs, you would have to be awfully virtuous not to take advantage of it....He's WEIRD in the sense of those students in the behavioral studies: Western Educated Idle Rich Deadbeat. He's not, even in Democrat terms, a political figure--as Bill Clinton or Joe Biden are. Instead, he's a creature of the broader culture: there are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of an unbounded lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism. Even as he denies American exceptionalism, he gets turned on by his own.

We all know - or at least we are told continuously - that we are a divided people. And we know there's a degree of truth in it. We have too often allowed our differences to prevail among us. We have too often allowed ambitious men to play off those differences for political gain. We have too often retreated behind our differences when no one really tried to lead us beyond them.

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 100 days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules - unchain Wall Street. They're gonna put y'all back in chains.

The 1994 Crime Bill, sponsored by Democratic senator Joe Biden, went even further, calling for more juveniles to be tried as adults, the building of more prisons, an end to the Pell Grants that had allowed inmates to earn college degrees while in prison, a “three strikes” provision mandating a life sentence upon conviction for a third federal crime, and a provision making gang membership a crime in and of itself. When Bill Clinton signed the measure into law, he ensured that the pattern of mass incarceration started by his predecessors would continue well past the end of his presidency.

Vice President JOE BIDEN I think the reason people abuse power is that they are seduced by the notion that they are so self-important. That they really matter. When, in fact, it is not usually the case. The leaders I’ve observed who are the best are the ones who have courage to take a chance and be willing to lose on principle. And they are self-aware. They understand their strengths and they understand their weaknesses. They play to their strengths, and they try to shore up their weaknesses. The people who don’t do that, who aren’t self-aware—that abuse of power ends up in their downfall.

Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot. It’s really just about making the effort to make a personal connection.

For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegiance to our vision simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy.

To my generation has now come the challenge. In the days to come we will be tested on whether we have the moral courage, the realism, the idealism, the tenacity, and the ability to sacrifice some of the current comfort to invest in the future... I believe that this generation will rise to the challenge... The experts believe that, like the Democratic Party itself, the less than forty-year-old voters are prepared to sell their souls for some security, real or illusory. They have misjudged us. Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.

I believe we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart, and I think we can. It’s mean-spirited. It’s petty. And it’s gone on for much too long. I don’t believe, like some do, that it’s naïve to talk to Republicans. I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition, not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.… Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take.

... in an airport in '64, Goldwater said, 'Well, keep punching, Hubert' during a chance meeting there. By the end of 1977, it became increasingly clear that the Boss (Hubert Humphrey) would not be around much longer. And on the Senate floor one day, Barry Goldwater walked across the aisle and enveloped Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater was so big and Humphrey so frail that Humphrey almost disappeared. The two men stood for a long moment, locked in a hug, and I could see that both men were crying. They made no effort to hide it.

Reader, let’s talk about ambition. First of all, the word is almost always used against young people—especially women. No one calls Bernie Sanders ambitious, but the man ran for president twice. When he ran in the eighties, Joe Biden was condemned for his ambition; no one said that in 2020. All her life, people have flung this accusation at Hillary Clinton.

Since the President’s 2016 election, the economy has added over 6.7 million jobs—more than the combined populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Montana in 2018. Additionally, this total is 4.8 million more jobs than the Congressional Budget Office projected would have been created in its final forecast before the 2016 election. . . . Most notably, the unemployment rate for African Americans reached a new low of 5.4 percent, falling 2.6 percentage points since President Trump’s election.”12 For anyone with a brain, that is a big deal.

Have you seen the crazy people who cheer for the protests and even the looting—when it’s far away? Then as it moves close by, they change their tune. Take Chris Palmer, a reporter who covers the NBA. On a Thursday, Palmer tweeted a photo of a building burning with the caption, “Burn that shit down. Burn it all down.”10 By the wee hours of Sunday morning, with the protesters in his neighborhood, he wrote, “They just attacked our sister community down the street. It’s a gated community and they tried to climb the gates. They had to beat them back. Then destroyed a Starbucks and are now in front of my building. Get these animals TF out of my neighborhood. Go back to where you live.

So I try to be mindful at all times, of what a difference a small human gesture can make to people in need. What does it really cost to take a moment to look someone in the eye, to give him a hug, to let her know, I get it. You're not alone?

He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A man's word is his bond. You give your word, you keep it. For as long as I can remember, I've had a sort of romantic notion of what politics should be- and can be. If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe- as I know my grandpop did- that my chosen profession is a noble calling.

the Democratic Party had failed (in 1983) 'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here -- moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest -- molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years -- became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake. p. 140

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress.

Robert Bork, at opening of Judiciary hearings: How should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is by attempting to discern what those who made the law intended... As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility "is to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know. If a judge abandons intentions as his guide, there is no law available to him, and he begins to legislate a social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his powers..

Need a hand?” I peeked at the figure on the horse’s back through cracks in my fingers. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light emanating from the horse, and the figure came into focus. It was Barack Obama, clad in a white toga. He pulled me to my feet. “Thanks,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe the dream I’ve had.” “Try me.” “You came to me one night, and said my friend had been hit by a train…and…is that a unicorn? I asked, squinting at the curled horn sprouting up between the horse’s ears. “I call her Little Beast.” I ran my fingers through the unicorn’s silken hair, which left rainbow glitter on my hand. The headache that had plagued me off and on all weekend was gone. There was no pain in my knee, or anywhere else in my body. “Is this heaven?” “No,” Barack said. “It’s Iowa.” And then suddenly we weren’t in the cemetery anymore. We were on a baseball diamond at the edge of a cornfield.

The Biden's have another belief as well:" If you have to ask, it's too late." When someone is in need, when they're hurting, when they're overwhelmed, you don't wait until they tell you they need your help. You give it before they have to ask. So when Neilia died and Joe was left with two young boys, trying to father them and get through his own grief, all while juggling the new hectic life of a senator, Val didn't ask if there was something she could do. She moved in. And for three years, through her own career ambitions, through her courtship and eventual marriage to her husband, Jack, she lived with Joe and the boys and made sure they had the love and support they needed to keep going.

It was at moments like these when I occasionally caught a glimpse of the warm, brotherly, and sometimes exasperating relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, two very different personalities. The pattern was usually the same: President Obama would have a series of exchanges heading a conversation very clearly and crisply in Direction A. Then, at some point, Biden would jump in with, “Can I ask something, Mr. President?” Obama would politely agree, but something in his expression suggested he knew full well that for the next five or ten minutes we would all be heading in Direction Z. After listening and patiently waiting, President Obama would then bring the conversation back on course.

I hear the voice of the people calling for a future in which every American is more secure in life and liberty and more able to pursue happiness. I hear the voice of people willing to make sacrifices today to achieve that kind of tomorrow. It's time for a president to listen to that rising voice and to amplify it. It's time for a president who can point the American people to the future within their reach, tell them what it will take to get there, and vigilantly remind them why it's worth fighting for. It's time for a president to stand up and remind the American people that we have promises to keep -- promises to the world, promises to one another, promises to our children and to our grandchildren. In rededicating ourselves to to the hard work of fulfilling those promises, we restore America as the hope of the world and the vision of a brighter future.

quoting from Neil Kinnock, running against Thatcher in 1987: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Is it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing, and play, and recite, and write poetry, those people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Those women who could survive eleven childbearings? Were they weak? Anybody really think that they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the strength, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform on which they could stand.