Quotes from Bill Bradley

I'm somebody who has to physically experience an environment in order to know it as well as I would like to know it. I recognize this is impressionistic, not scientific. People say, 'You sound like Walt Whitman.' Well, I'll take that comparison.

Since the days of Harry Truman, Democrats have wanted universal health coverage, believing that if other industrialized countries can achieve it, surely the United States can. For Democrats, universal coverage speaks to America's sense of decency and compassion. Democrats also believe that it will lead to a healthier and more productive country.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'

At the end of the Cold War, the prevailing view in Washington was that the U.S. was strong, and Russia was weak and did not count in a unipolar world. We disregarded Russia's opposition to NATO expansion, the Iraq War, and the U.S.-led military intervention in Serbia for the independence of Kosovo.

Leadership is not something that is done to people, like fixing your teeth. Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better.

I think that the great presidents have always been a little more clever.

By the time I was 14, I had become self-motivated. Whatever raced inside me was more demanding than any pressure applied by parents or teachers.

Democrats must rally behind a low-rate, broad-based tax system that is fair, simple and efficient.

Princeton ignited my intellectual curiosity and introduced me to a new social world. It... challenged me on the most fundamental levels imaginable. It was where I became a man.

For a long time, I operated under the Chinese proverb that there are four kinds of leaders: those who you laugh at, those who you hate, those who you love and those who you don't even know that they're leaders.

When I played the game, you played with your feet. And the game was about finesse. Movement.

People tell me, "I'm glad you said that." But this is not a spectator sport. This is an activity that requires daily moral awakening as well as a commitment that leads to real change.

Behind all the years of practice and all the hours of glory waits that inexorable terror of living without the game.

When the playing is over, one can sense that one's youth has been spent playing a game, and now both the game and youth are gone.

Look, I have no qualms about having played basketball. The game has done so much for me. Look at the places I've been, for one thing.

Kids always ask the most obvious and the most difficult questions.

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

If you win a championship, you win it doing many of the same things you had to do when we won championships. You have to be unselfish. You have to work very hard. You have to be resilient. You have to have a passion for what you do.

Whenever Congress undertakes large-scale reform, there are times when disaster appears certain - only to be averted at the last minute by the good sense of its sometimes unfairly maligned members.

Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it.

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.