Top 66 Quotes & Sayings by Bill Bradley

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.

Legislating is a very human experience in which trust and mutual respect play critical roles.

Why do we fully tax some kinds of income from capital, like interest and dividends; partially tax other kinds like capital gains; defer tax on other kinds, like IRAs; and impose no tax at all on still other types of capital income, like interest on municipal bonds? This simply is not rational. These distinctions don't have any inherent logic.

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.

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

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices.

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

I always thought the objective of basketball was to get the maximum amount of movement to get the easiest shot, closest to the basket. With the three-point rule, the whole strategy changes, and you make a move and then throw it 30 feet out, where somebody takes a standing jump shot.

Malpractice tort reform can be something as commonsensical as the establishment of medical courts - similar to bankruptcy or admiralty courts - with special judges to make determinations in cases brought by parties claiming injury.

For Republicans, tort reform and its health care analogue, malpractice reform, speak to the goal of stronger economic growth and lower costs.

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

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

Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better.

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.

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.

All I have are the people.

I am more interested in experiencing life than in analyzing it.

When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.

Leaders should be collaborative, modest, and generous.

The U.S. actions in Kosovo - carving out an independent state based on ethnicity from within a sovereign nation - provided the precedent for Russia to carve Crimea out of Ukraine.

I never allowed other people's expectations to determine whatever course I took. I had to reach a decision about what I was going to do based on what I felt inside myself.

Over the years, the tax code has become a vehicle for political favoritism and social engineering.

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.

I've never allowed my political life, or my life as a basketball player, to define the totality of my humanity or my personality.

The taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own.

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

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.

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

I think Jeremy Lin is a really interesting player.

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

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.

There has never been a great athlete who died not knowing what pain is.

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.

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.

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

For much of my career I had no authentic political voice. I had been campaigning all over the country not to change the world or shake up my audiences but to please the roomful of people to whom I was speaking... As a result, my words rarely had the ring of truth to the nonpolitical observer.

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.

That feeling of being the NBA Champion is really unparalleled, because you're the best in the world. Without question. How many people can say that in any profession?

Al Gore clearly has the vision... it's a much better vision than that of George W. Bush.

How should we Democrats select the next presidential nominee? Smoke filled rooms? Brokered convention? National primary? Personally, I prefer jump shots from the top of the key.

Give to another human being without the expectation of a return.

A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

I might lose because I wasn't tall enough; I might lose because I wasn't fast enough. But I wasn't going to lose because I wasn't ready.

We need to get beyond the politics of the moment, the deficit of the hour, the military count of the day, the numbers that rarely shape events. Our long-term interests must be in people and in the values of democracy and individual liberty.

Some people say we can never achieve our special destiny, but I say, in a world of new possibilities guided by goodness, we can and we will.

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.

We have to repair that trust ... I think anytime a public official lies, he undermines his own authority and squanders the public trust.

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

Mark Twain put it best when he said, 'Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

We realized that no one of us could be as good as all of us playing unselfishly.

The Boy Scouts of America stands for a set of principles. These principles have a lot of staying power. The values you learn as a Scout are like a compass. They can help you find your way through difficult and sometimes unchartered terrain. The principles of Scouting give you a sense of what's important. I feel I owe the Boy Scouts a great deal, both personally and professionally.

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices

Leaders should be collaborative, modest, and generous

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

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. No destructive lies. No ridiculous fears. No debilitating anger.

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

I think the political process has degenerated into name-calling and extremism, and I think that that's unfortunate.

When you're not practicing, someone somewhere is. And when the two of you meet, assuming roughly equal ability, the other person will win.

The point of the game is not how well the individual does, but whether the team wins. That's the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for the group success.