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There Were Always Jokes About Hillary Clinton Channeling Eleanor Roosevelt, But Eleanor Roosevelt Was Really Instrumental At The Un, And Would Want To Meet With Various Other Delegates.

-Madeleine Albright

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There Were Always Jokes

Madeleine Albright

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There Were Always Jokes About Hillary Clinton Channeling Eleanor Roosevelt, But Eleanor Roosevelt Was Really Instrumental At The Un, And Would Want To Meet With Various Other Delegates.

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What's The Point Of Having This Superb Military You're Always Talking About If We Can't Use It?

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The U.n. Bureaucracy Has Grown To Elephantine Proportions. Now That The Cold War Is Over, We Are Asking That Elephant To Do Gymnastics.

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I Got Married, I Really Waited A Long Time - Three Days After I Graduated.

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Problem Solvers

Even Though There Were Three Newspapers In Chicago At The Time, He Said 'you Wouldn't Want To Compete With Your Husband," And So Instead Of Doing What I Might Do Now In That Situation, I Basically Saluted And Found Other Things To Do.

The Purpose Of Foreign Policy Is To Persuade Others To Do What We Want Or, Better Yet, To Want What We Want.

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When Combined With Information And Communication Technologies, Microcredit Can Unleash New Opportunities For The World's Poorest Entrepreneurs And Thereby Revitalize The Village Economies They Serve.

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This Is Pure Speculation, But For A Period Of Time, A Lot Of Getting Into A Party Was Through Fundraising And Volunteer Work, And Republican Women Had More Time To Do That Than Democratic Women, Who Were Out There Getting Jobs.

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Even Before I Went To The Un, I Often Would Want To Say Something In A Meeting - Only Woman At The Table - And I'd Think, 'ok Well, I Don't Think I'll Say That. It May Sound Stupid.' And Then Some Man Says It, And Everybody Thinks It's Completely Brilliant, And You Are So Mad At Yourself For Not Saying Something.

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Mass Destruction

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Black And White

There Were Always Jokes About Hillary Clinton Channeling Eleanor Roosevelt, But Eleanor Roosevelt Was Really Instrumental At The Un, And Would Want To Meet With Various Other Delegates.

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Tough Questions

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What People Have The Capacity To Choose, They Have The Ability To Change.

A Great Task Has Been Completed And An Even Larger One Remains.

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The Day-to-day Making Of Policy Is Arguing All The Time. You're Trying To Get The Right Approach And The Right Answer, And There Are Moments That Aren't Very Pleasant. But In The End, You Look At The Overall Product.

I Was In Europe And It Was At This Stage That I Fell In Love With Americans In Uniform. And I Continue To Have That Love Affair.

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I Got Married Three Days After Graduation, And The First Thing I Did What I Was Expected To Do Which Was To Work On A Small Newspaper. So We Were In Chicago Where My Husband Worked For The Chicago Sun-times And We Were Having Dinner With His Editor And He Said 'so What Are You 'gonna Do Honey?' And I Said 'i'm Going To Work On A Newspaper', And He Said 'i Don't Think So", Because Newspaper Guild Regulations Said That I Couldn't Work On The Same Newspaper As My Husband.

Often If You Don't Speak Up, Whatever You Thought Was Stupid To Say Some Man Would Say And Then Everyone Would Say 'as He Said'.

When We're Trying To Solve Difficult National Issues Its Sometimes Necessary To Talk To Adversaries As Well As Friends. Historians Have A Word For This: Diplomacy.

I Get Up Every Morning And I'm Grateful For Everything That Has Happened. I Go Through My List About Being Grateful For My Children And Grandchildren, And For The Really Remarkable Life That I Have Been Able To Have.

People Didn't Think That A Woman Could Be The Secretary Of State, When My Name Was Out There...but Then The Arab Ambassadors At The Un Said 'we Have No Problem Dealing With Ambassador Albright, And We Would Have No Problem Dealing With Secretary Albright.'

Jewels Have Played A Colorful Part In The Evolution Of World Affairs. Because Precious Stones Tend To Inspire Both Admiration And Greed, Leaders Have Found Convenient Excuses For Seeking Them And Have Used Them To Impress Crowds, Reward Friends, Deprive Foes, Forge Alliances, And Justify War. Jewels May Find Their Highest Expression In The Decorative Arts, But They Have Also Earned A Place In The Art Of The Possible.

We Must Stop Saddam From Ever Again Jeopardizing The Stability And Security Of His Neighbors With Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

I Think Women Want To Take Care Of Themselves, And I Think Having A Voice In How That Is Done Is Very Important.

Well We're Good Friends So I'm A Little Prejudice, But I Think [hillary Clinton] Is Incredibly Qualified, And Better Prepared To Be President Than Almost Anyone Who's Ever Run Frankly.

We Have The Most Generous Immigration Policy, But What Is A Concern Is When Illegal Immigrants Come And Undermine A Variety Of The Systems That Work In Order To Make Our Society Function.

I Was A Little Girl In World War Ii And I'm Used To Being Freed By Americans.

I Was Struck By The Joy Of Those Pilots In Committing Coldblooded Murder . . . Frankly, This Is Not Cojones. This Is Cowardice.

I Do Believe That In Order To Be A Successful Negotiator That As A Diplomat, You Have To Be Able To Put Yourself Into The Other Person's Shoes. Unless You Can Understand What Is Motivating Them, You Are Never Going To Be Able To Figure Out How To Solve A Particular Problem.

The Difference Between Humans And Other Mammals Is That We Know How To Accessorize.

Most Of The Time I Spend When I Get Up In The Morning Is Trying To Figure Out What Is Going To Happen.

Jewelry And Pins Have Been Worn Throughout History As Symbols Of Power, Sending Messages. Interestingly Enough, It Was Mostly Men Who Wore The Jewelry In Various Times, And Obviously Crowns Were Part Of Signals That Were Being Sent Throughout History By People Of Rank.

Why, Since Man And Woman Were Created For Each Other, Had He Made Their Desires So Dissimilar? Why Should One Class Of Women Be Able To Dwell In Luxurious Seclusion From The Trials Of Life, While Another Class Performed Their Loathsome Tasks? Surely His Wisdom Had Not Decreed That One Set Of Women Should Live In Degradation And In The End Should Perish That Others Might Live In Security, Preserve Their Frappeed Chastity, And In The End Be Saved.

I Bought ... The Pins With My Three Daughters In Mind; The Ships Are Beautiful, Graceful, And Moving Along At Full Sail, Having Long Since Left Home Port.

There Are A Lot Of Similar Aspects In All The Religions. The Question Is Which Side Of It You Hold Up.

One Of The Things That Was Really An Issue Was I Did Not Want To Just Be A Woman Secretary Of State. I Wanted To Be A Secretary Of A State Who Was A Woman, But Not Just Chosen For That Particular Reason.

Leaders Are Made By The Situations They Are Involved In. I Think That Some Rise To The Occasion And Some Do Not.

I Think There Has To Be The Sense That Once You Have Climbed The Ladder Of Success, That You Don't Push It Away From The Building.

I Have To Tell You, My Seven-year-old Granddaughter Said To My Daughter, Her Mother, 'so What's The Big Deal About Grandma Maddy Having Been Secretary Of State? Only Girls Are Secretaries Of State.' Most Of Her Lifetime, It's True. But At The Time It Really Was A Big Deal.

I Teach At Georgetown, And I See That The Students Have So Many Different Interests. The Main Thing Is To Match Your Passion With Your Knowledge, Because You Can't Just Be Passionate Without Knowing The Facts, And Facts Are Really Boring Without Passion.

The World Would Be Entirely Different If It Were Run By Women. I Think It Is True That We Are More Seeking Consensus And Don't Have Such Big Egos And Have A Variety Of Different Ways Of Trying To Get Along. But Anybody Who Says That The World Would Be Better Has Forgotten High School. It Depends On Who The Women Are.

Obviously Iran Is A Very Large Problem. It's Hard To Decide What The Number One Issue [is], But That Is A Very Threatening Problem.

In Diplomacy, Clear-cut Wins And Losses Are Rare.

Unfortunately For The Iraqi People, Instead Of Meeting These Requirements, For Six Years, Saddam Hussein Has Lied, Delayed, Obstructed And Tried To Deceive

I Have Always Seen The United States As A Force Of Good. And I Have Learned That There Is The Idealistic Part About What We Can Do At The U.n. And There Is A Doable Part. And I Have Learned What Is More Doable.

It's Important That We Invest In America - Literally. The Terrorists Wanted To Destroy Our Economy, And We Can't Let Our System Fall Apart. We Also Have To Invest In One Another.

As Far As Barriers Once I Joined The Government I Was Very Lucky Because I Had All Of My Credentials Together, I Was Doctor Albright... So When Somebody Wanted The One Woman I Made Sure That They Knew I Was Dependable And Qualified.

I Was Not Only The First Woman To Become Secretary Of State, I Was The First [u.s.] Secretary Of State Of The 21st Century. I Was The First Secretary Of State To Own A Web Site, To Visit Internet Cafes, And To Make Internet Access A Part Of Policy.

Internet Access

Well, The Thing That I Learned As A Diplomat Is That Human Relations Ultimately Make A Huge Difference.

I Felt That America's Duty Was Not To Try To Do Everything Itself, But To Foster A Sense Of Commitment That Would Bring Out The Best In Every Country.

I Think The Hardest Part [is] The Priorities. There Are An Awful Lot Of Things To Do [being Secretary Of State].

A Lot Of People Think International Relations Is Like A Game Of Chess. But It's Not A Game Of Chess, Where People Sit Quietly, Thinking Out Their Strategy, Taking Their Time Between Moves. It's More Like A Game Of Billiards, With A Bunch Of Balls Clustered Together.

I Can't Imagine What It Is Like To Be Raised In A Society Where Their Only Statues That Exist Are To You And Your Father.

The Process Of Education In The Oldest Profession In The World Is Like Any Other Educational Process, In That It Requires Time Andeffort And Patience; It Can Only Be Acquired By Taking One Step At A Time, Though The Steps Become Accelerated After The First Few.

While Democracy In The Long Run Is The Most Stable Form Of Government, In The Short Run, It Is Among The Most Fragile.

I'm Not A Person Who Thinks The World Would Be Entirely Different If It Was Run By Women. If You Think That, You've Forgotten What High School Was Like.

We Are Very Hip On The Fact That America's Always No. 1. On This We Are Not, In Terms Of The Number Of Women In Our Legislative Branches And Obviously As Head Of State. We Need To Push On That. I Hate To Say This: It Isn't All Men's Fault. I Think Some Of It Is Our Own Attitude And Approach. Some Of It Very Healthy, That Women Want To Make Choices About Their Lives And How They Want To Spend Their Time, And What They Value.

Really, I Have To Laugh Because There Was A Whole Set Of Stories That Made Me Sound Like The Dragon Lady, You Know, 'tough This And Tough That.' Then There Is This Business About 'gooey.' The Bottom Line Is I Am A Pragmatic Idealist.

I'm For Democracy, But Imposing Democracy Is An Oxymoron. People Have To Choose Democracy, And It Has To Come Up From Below.

The Magic Of America Is That We're A Free And Open Society With A Mixed Population. Part Of Our Security Is Our Freedom.

You [young People] All Are Just Much More Internationally-minded And Traveled And Knowledgeable In Languages Than Any Other Previous Generation. So Many Of You Are Already Doing A Lot Of International Relations, I Think. I So Believe In Student Networks, And People That Either Study Abroad Or Come To The United States To Study, And The Relationships That You All Develop. You Learn A Lot From Each Other, But You All Will See Each Other Again In Jobs Along The Way. And I Think That Makes A Big Difference. I So Believe In What Students Can Do.

The Greatest Thrill In My Life Was To Represent The United States Of America.

I Have Been In Meetings Where A Head Of State Will Say, 'i Like Your Tie,' To A Man... Or, 'i Like Your Country Because The Weather's Good,' Or Whatever. So For Me, The Pins In Some Ways Were Openers.

Us Is A Very Religious Country. Separation Of Church And State Is Part Of Our Credo, But That It Is Hard To Understand Since Our Money Says "in God We Trust" And Every President Says "god Bless America".

I Saw What Happened When A Dictator Was Allowed To Take Over A Piece Of A Country And The Country Went Down The Tubes. And I Saw The Opposite During The War When America Joined The Fight.

The System He (president Hosni Mubarak) Is Recommending Would Make It Virtually Impossible For Truly Independent Parties To Participate. Sham Democracy Should Be Exposed For What It Truly Is.

Only In America Could A Refugee Girl From Central Europe Become Secretary Of State.

I Know That War Is Very Cruel And That Life Is Harder When You Aren't Able To Live In The Place You Called Home.

I Was Not At All Apprehensive About ... Disease ... [it] Had No Terrors For Me. The Thing I Most Feared In The World Was Hunger. That Was Something Of Which I Had Personal Knowledge.

Personal Knowledge

There Is A Significant Moral Difference Between A Person Who Commits A Violent Crime And A Person Who Tries To Cross A Border Illegally In Order To Put Food On The Family Table. Such Migrants My Violate Our Laws Against Illicit Entry, But If That's All They Do They Are Trespassers, Not Criminals. They Deserve To Have Their Dignity Respected.

I Am The Only High-ranking U.s. Official To Ever Meet With Kim Jong-il, And We Are The Same Height And Both Wear High Heels.

I Think This Is A Very Hard Choice, But The Price - We Think The Price Is Worth It.

Economic Sanctions

Embrace The Faith That Every Challenge Surmounted By Your Energy; Every Problem Solved By Your Wisdom; Every Soul Stirred By Your Passion; And Every Barrier To Justice Brought Down By Your Determination Will Ennoble Your Life, Inspire Others, Serve Your Country, And Explode Outward The Boundaries Of What Is Achievable On This Earth.

To Understand Europe, You Have To Be A Genius - Or French.

The Capability Of Negotiating... Is Something That Means You Not Only Have To Understand Fully What You Believe And What Your National Interests Are But In Order To Be A Really Good Negotiator, You Have To Try To Figure Out What The Other Person On The Other Side Of The Table Has In Mind.

I Have Had Fun Being Who I Became, So To Speak.

Because Of My Parents' Love Of Democracy, We Came To America After Being Driven Twice From Our Home In Czechoslovakia - First By Hitler And Then By Stalin.

No One Has Done What Saddam Hussein Has Done, Or Is Thinking Of Doing. He Is Producing Weapons Of Mass Destruction, And He Is Qualitatively And Quantitatively Different From Other Dictators.

Mass Destruction

I've Never Seen America As An Imperialist Or Colonialist Or Meddling Country.

My Parents Were Of The Generation Who Thought They Were The Children Of A Free Czechoslovakia, The Only Democracy In Central Europe.

Whatever The Job You Are Asked To Do At Whatever Level, Do A Good Job Because Your Reputation Is Your Resume.

There's Madeleine, And Then There's 'madeleine Albright'. And I Sometimes Kind Of Think, Who Is This Person? Once You Become 'madeleine Albright' It Doesn't Go Away.

We Live In An Image Society. Speeches Are Not What Anybody Cares About; What They Care About Is The Picture.

John Kerry Knows More About More Subjects Than An Awful Lot Of People. But I Think It's A Very Hard Job [secretary Of State].

History Is Written Backwards But Lived Forwards.

I Have Said This Many Times, That There Seems To Be Enough Room In The World For Mediocre Men, But Not For Mediocre Women, And We Really Have To Work Very, Very Hard.

The Framework Agreement Is One Of The Best Things The [clinton] Administration Has Done Because It Stopped A Nuclear Weapons Program In North Korea.

Well I Do Think, When There Are More Women, That The Tone Of The Conversation Changes, And Also The Goals Of The Conversation Change. But It Doesn't Mean That The Whole World Would Be A Lot Better If It Were Totally Run By Women. If You Think That, You've Forgotten High School.

I Do Consider Myself A Feminist. I Know The Word Has Weird Implications For People Now, But I Do Think That Its Important To Have Women Involved, Whether Its Business Or Public Service Or...anything.

So There Really Was A Whole Series Of Things That Took The Women Of My Generation A Little Bit Of Time To Push Forward.

Every New President Inherits Headaches, But President Obama Has Inherited An Entire Emergency Room.

I Am Often Asked If, When I Was Secretary, I Had Problems With Foreign Men. That Is Not Who I Had Problems With, Because I Arrived In A Very Large Plane That Said United States Of America. I Had More Problems With The Men In Our Own Government.

Saddam's Goal Is To Achieve The Lifting Of U.n. Sanctions While Retaining And Enhancing Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction Programs. We Cannot, We Must Not And We Will Not Let Him Succeed.

Mass Destruction

I Really Do Think About The Fact That Every Day Counts. I Believe That Every Individual Counts, And So I Believe That Every Day Counts And I Try Not To Waste It.

If You Look At My Life, Generally, I've Been Put In Situations Which Were Difficult And Which I Conquered.

And So I Think That The Idea Of America Working With Other Countries To Solve Problems Is Good For Us, And It Is Part Of Digging Us Out Of The “my Way Or The Highway” Approach That Was Evident In The Previous Eight Years.

A Skilled Diplomat Rarely Generates Extreme Reactions.

The Bottom Line Is, The More We Have A Cadre Of Women Moving Up The Scale, And It Doesn't Seem Threatening, And People Realize That Women Actually Work Much Harder Than Men, And Realize That They Need More Women In These Jobs, I Think That Goes Away.

I Enjoy Wearing Pins, And Nobody Tells Me To Do It.

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Richard Attenborough

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