Bartlet: We meant 'stronger' here, right?
Sam: What does it say?
Bartlet: I'm proud to report our country's stranger than it was a year ago?
Sam: That's a typo.
Bartlet: Could go either way.

Bartlet: We should organize a staff field-trip to Shenandoah. I could even act as the guide. What do you think?
Josh: [Under his breath] Good a place as any to dump your body.
Bartlet: What was that?
Josh: ... Did I say that out loud?
Bartlet: See, and I was gonna let you go home.
Josh: [Sinking feeling] ... But instead?
Bartlet: We're gonna talk about Yosemite.

Bartlet: We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn... for everybody. And because in our time, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business. And so we are for freedom from tyranny, everywhere, whether in the guise of political oppression, Toby, or economic slavery, Josh, or religious fanaticism, CJ. That most fundamental idea cannot be met with merely our support. It has to be met with our strength. Diplomatically, economically, materially. And if Pharaoh still don't free the slaves, then he gets the plagues or my cavalry, whichever gets there first. The USTR will go crazy and say that we're not considering global trade. Committee members will go crazy and say I haven't consulted enough. And the Arab world will just go indiscriminately crazy. No country has ever had a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake. That streak's gonna end Sunday at noon.

Bartlet: Well, I guess we talked about a lot of things: who we think the Republican challenger is gonna be, and incumbency, and campaign strategy - strategic overview, but the long and short of it is, my father never liked me, at all. [long pause]
Dr. Keyworth: Well, at least we're closer to my area now.
Bartlet: Yeah, I thought you'd enjoy that.

Bartlet: Well, I'm not going to negotiate with anyone who holds a gun to my head. We had a deal. I don't care if my approval ratings drop into single digits. I am the President of the United States, and I will leave the government shut down until we come to an equitable agreement.

Bartlet: Were we talking about something?
CJ: I don't know sir, when I came in here � back in the late 50s � there was a purpose to it but then one thing led to another and I blacked out. I mean, I can hang in there with the best of them, sir, but somewhere during the conversation about anise and coriander and the other fifteen spices you like to use to baste a turkey I simply lost consciousness.
Bartlet: You know that line you're not supposed to cross with the President?
CJ: I'm coming up to it?
Bartlet: No, no, look behind you.

Bartlet: Werner Von Braun's autobiography was titled 'I Aim for the Stars.' Mort Sahl joked, he should have added 'Only Sometimes I Hit London.'

Bartlet: What about our people?
Leo: : CJ hit her head on the ground, but other than that.
Bartlet: Get the cabinet together, and the security council. Tell Jerome to suspend trading on the stock exchange...do we know who the shooters were?
Leo:: [shaking his head] No.
Bartlet: I'm gonna be under anesthesia for a couple hours.
Leo:: It'll be fine.
Bartlet: You know what I'm talking about, right?
Leo:: I'll talk to Abbey.
Doctor:: [grabbing Leo's arm] Sir, it's time.
Bartlet: Hey, come here. [Leo leans in toward the President and turns his head. Jed plants a reassuring kiss on Leo's cheek.] It's okay.
Leo:: I'll see you in a few hours Mr. President.

Bartlet: What do we do with him?
Sam: Make him the Ambassador to Paraguay.
Bartlet: What do we do with the Ambassador to Paraguay?
Sam: Make him Ambassador to Bulgaria.
Bartlet: I like this. Because, if everybody keeps moving up one, I can go home.

Bartlet: What's on your mind?
Toby: The era of big government is over.
Bartlet: You want to cut the line?
Toby: I want to change the sentiment. [pause] We're running away from ourselves and I know we can score points that way, I was a principal architect of that campaign strategy right along with you, Josh. But we're here now, tomorrow night we do an immense thing; we have to say what we feel, that government, no matter what its failures in the past and in times to come for that matter, government can be a place where people come together and where no one gets left behind. No one...gets left behind. An instrument of good.

Bartlet: What's the virtue of the proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: I'm sorry?
Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response? Why's it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That's a proportional response.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Sir, in the case of Pericles 1 --
Bartlet: [talking over him] They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters.
Admiral Fitzwallace: That's roughly it, yes, sir.
Bartlet: This is what we do. I mean, this is what we do.
Leo: Yes, sir, it's what we do. It's what we've always done.
Bartlet: Well, if it's what we do, if it's what we've always done, don't they know we're going to do it?
Leo: Sir, if you'd turn your attention to Pericles 1 --
Bartlet: I have turned my attention to Pericles 1. It's two ammo dumps, an abandoned railroad bridge and a Syrian intelligence agency.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Those are four highly-rated targets, sir.
Bartlet: But they know we're gonna do that. They know we're gonna do that! Those areas have been abandoned for three days now. We know that from the satellite, right? We have the intelligence. [over Leo's attempt to speak up] They did that, so we did this. It's the cost of doing business. It's been factored in, right?
Leo: Mr. President --
Bartlet: Am I right, or am I missing something here?
Admiral Fitzwallace: No, sir. You're right, sir.
Bartlet: Then I ask again, what is the virtue of a proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: It isn't virtuous, Mr. President. It's all there is, sir.
Bartlet: It is not all there is.
Leo: Sir, Admiral Fitzwallace --
Admiral Fitzwallace: Excuse me, Leo...pardon me, Mr. President, just what else is there?
Bartlet: The disproportional response. Let the word ring forth, from this time and this place, gentlemen, you kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster! [He bangs the table]
General: Are you suggesting that we carpet-bomb Damascus?
Bartlet: I am suggesting, General, that you, and Admiral Fitzwallace, and Secretary Hutchinson, and the rest of the National Security Team take the next sixty minutes and put together an American response scenario that doesn't make me think we're just docking somebody's damn allowance!

Bartlet: Where are you on the missile shield?
Lord John Marbury: Well, I think it's dangerous, illegal...fiscally irresponsible, technologically unsound, and a threat to all people everywhere.
Bartlett: Leo?
Leo: I think the world invented a nuclear weapon. I think the world owes it to itself to see if it can't invent something to make it irrelevant.
Lord John Marbury: Well that's the right sentiment, certainly a credible one from a man who's fought in a war. You think you can make it stop? Well, you can't. We build a shield and somebody will build a better missile.
Bartlet: Well, it's a discussion for serious men. They say a statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years. I'd like us to be statesmen while we're still alive.

Bartlet: Whether you choose to do this today or ten years from today, you will face the same geography, the same neighbors, the same ancient animosities. More years of bloodshed and pain will not change those facts. The only path to a real and lasting peace is through negotiation.

Bartlet: With the ingredients for stuffing you have to cook them before you put them in the turkey, and you're not going to know whether I did or not.
Abbey: I'll do what I always do with anything you cook. I'll wait for the girls to eat it first.
Bartlet: Me, too.

Bartlet: Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.
Abbey: You are an oratorical snob.
Bartlet: Yes, and God loves me for it.
Abbey: You said he was sending you to hell.
Bartlet: For other stuff, not for this.