Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a 'No Drama' rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.

Very few presidents create their own greatness. Greatness is thrust upon them by a crisis.

Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.

My biggest concern is that America is drifting towards mediocrity and that people don't recognize - and by people I'm meaning Washington - don't recognize the sense of urgency and the fact that I don't think this is a crisis anymore. I think it's an emergency.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

I love Obama's calm and dignity. A lot of people confuse that with being aloof, but I know people that have held that job. It's a 24-hour barrage of information.

We were hoping Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America. That failed.

Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.

Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction.

I am deeply concerned and troubled about the situation we are up against in the world now and in the immediate future. That is why I would hope that someone with the greatest possible maturity and experience would be available at this time. May I urge you to be patient.

If there is not the occasion, you don't get the great statesmen. If Lincoln had lived in peacetime, you would not know his name today.

I don't propose to be swept off my feet by the catastrophe.

Never let a national crisis go to waste.

I don't think that the United States are ready for a presidency as the one of Obama, at least because he would be the first black president.

The Nation trembled on the brink. Events moved with such speed that it was necessary to decide to act on the instant, as each successive crisis arose.

When you're a leader at any level of any scale, leaders are defined at times of crisis.

Too few presidents have steeped themselves not just in Lincoln's words but his deeds, which is why Obama's acquaintance with the great man is so compelling - especially since, like President-elect Lincoln, Obama will take office at a perilous time.

The Obama Doctrine is to ignore an international crisis or go to war. There is no in between.

Barack Obama took office in the middle of a massive financial crisis. He was handed a bunch of messes all around the world and at home.

We got a rally a little while later - to talk to the rally because what I heard at that meeting [in Flint] - it was almost impossible for me to believe that I was listening to people in the United States of America in the year 2016.

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

The last thing America needs is four more years of Barack Obama.

The current situation of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear plants is in a way the most severe crisis in the 65 years since World War II.

Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he's lecturing us about how America's gone "soft"? Really?

America cannot take another four years of Barack Obama, and that's what you're getting with Hillary Clinton.