The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it. Between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past. Between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.
Interpretation
The fundamental divides in society are based on the choices people make regarding peace and conflict.
This quote by William J. Clinton highlights the idea that the most significant differences in the world are not based on ethnicity or religion but rather on the attitudes individuals and groups take towards peace and conflict. It suggests that the division lies between those who seek harmony and progress and those who are resistant to change and intent on perpetuating cycles of violence and negativity. It is a call to recognize the deeper issues at play in societal conflicts, emphasizing the choice to embrace a peaceful future over a troubled past.
In practice
In a speech promoting unity, one might say, 'As William J. Clinton reminds us, the differences that matter most are those who embrace peace.'
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
To live fixated on the future is to engage in psychological denial. It is a form of psychic violence that prepares us to accept the violence needed to ensure the maintenance of imperialist, future-oriented society.
I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.
The Bourne Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain.
Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.
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