Bill Clinton Quotes

Progress toward a more abundant material life does not come like manna from heaven, however. My message certainly is not one of complacency. The ultimate resource is people — especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty — who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and inevitably benefit the rest of us as well.

Ideas are what power our economy.

We try to preach innovation. We provide resources; we invite speakers in from universities to talk about new ideas.

Wealth flows from energy and ideas.

The single most important factor in determining America's success in the 21st century will be maintaining our ability to be an innovative and creative society.

There's a lot of potential that goes unused in places like South Central L.A., a lot of brilliant, smart people who just don't have that chance to show it.

Egypt has great potential because of the latent power of its human capital.

Capitalism does a number of things very well: it helps create an entrepreneurial spirit; it gets people motivated to come up with new ideas, and that's a good thing.

The United States is the only power in history that became great by giving and not by taking. I think the crisis was when the United States had more money than ideas. Money doesn't produce money. Ideas produce money.

In Holland, every Monday evening my creative team meets to discuss fresh new ideas. We try to look at what's happening in the world. Are there trends? Are there new developments we should be aware of? And regularly we heard that people are uncertain about the future. People are sick and tired of the rules and regulations.

If large numbers of people believe they have no shot at a better life in the future, they will work less hard and generate fewer new ideas and businesses. The economy, as a whole, will be poorer.

Rising inequality is toxic to growth. High levels of inequality exclude people - both as innovators and customers - diminishing both innovation and demand.

The association of poverty with progress is the enigma of our times.

The politics of growth trump the politics of compassion.

In such a colony, the highest capacities of mind and heart, which, as every unprejudiced observer will confess, can readily be discovered in a large number of individuals of our nation, would be sooner and more rapidly developed than our present social life admits of, where so many circumstances unite to stifle the most splendid, most promising natural abilities in the bud.

I think we have to accelerate our development. Slow development means hunger …

It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.

Growth and prosperity. These are the blocks with which we must build our welfare society.

I don’t think everybody fully appreciates the consequences of slower growth, which are very serious. You need growth to have the resources to build the infrastructure, housing, to uphold the standard of living.

In the first phase of economic development you have rising inequality.

Our problem number 1, 2 and 3 is economic development.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

… growth is necessary to meet the requirements of social and national progress

Clear rules for global relations create opportunities and incentives to innovate, invest and work--the critical drivers of economicv progress, History shows that the absense of a durable framework not only squanders untapped potential during good times, but also creates grave risks during turbulant times.

Economic growth driven by large-scale infrastructure investments without equitable provision of education will leave hundreds of millions of people behind, exacerbating inequality, disillusion, and instability.