Background Image

...

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.

-Madeleine Albright

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

We Are Very Hip

Madeleine Albright

...

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.

Views: 9764

Topic

More From Madeleine Albright

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 Consider It My Patriotic Duty As An Ordinary Citizen - Not As Secretary Of State - To Ask Questions. I Think We Have To Ask Ourselves The Tough Questions.

Tough Questions

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.

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'.

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.

Armageddon Is Not A Foreign Policy.

If Intelligence Were A Television Set, It Would Be An Early Black-and-white Model With Poor Reception, So That Much Of The Picture Was Gray And The Figures On The Screen Were Snowy And Indistinct. You Could Fiddle With The Knobs All You Wanted, But Unless You Were Careful, What You Would See Often Depended More On What You Expected Or Hoped To See Than On What Was Really There.

Black And White

The Main Thing Is To Remain Oneself, Under Any Circumstances; That Was And Is Our Common Purpose.

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

If We Have To Use Force, It Is Because We Are America. We Are The Indispensable Nation. We Stand Tall. We See Further Into The Future.

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

The Best Book, Like The Best Speech, Will Do It All - Make Us Laugh, Think, Cry And Cheer - Preferably In That Order.

No Matter How Hard We Might Wish, We Will Not Be Able To Transform China's Behavior Overnight.

I Think That The Middle East Is The Largest Piece Of Unfinished Business That We All Have. I Happen To Believe In The Democratization Process.

Unfinished Business

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 Have Certain Issues. I Support Women Candidates, But I Cannot Support A Woman That I Don't Believe In. I Would Prefer To Vote For A Man Who Believes In Choice Than A Woman Who Is Pro-life. We Have To Be Able To Make Distinctions And Not Look As Though We Are Not Feminist Enough If We Don't Support Every Woman. We Need To Have That Kind Of A Choice.

I Do Think That One Needs To Have Respect For People Who Are Older. And I Really Do Love The Idea That One Can Respect Generations.

If There's Nobody In Your Way, You're Not Going Anywhere.

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.

After The Cold War, To Rally The American People To Understand That We Had To Be A Part Of Solutions. It's One Thing To Say That We Have To Run Everything, It's Another To Say We Don't Want Anything To Do With It.

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.

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 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.

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

I Am Such A Political Person.

For Me, Being Raised In A Free America Made All The Difference.

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 Loved What I Did. I Could've Been Secretary Of State For Ever.

Bill Clinton Valued My Opinion And Always Made Sure That My Views Were Heard, And People Knew That He Wanted Me To Talk.

I Have Very Set And Consistent Principles, But I Am Flexible On Tactics. I Like To Get The Job Done.

Our Strategic Dialogue With China Can Both Protect American Interests And Uphold Our Principles, Provided We Are Honest About Our Differences On Human Rights And Other Issues And Provided We Use A Mix Of Targeted Incentives And Sanctions To Narrow These Differences.

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

There Are An Awful Lot Of Things Going On That Need Understanding And Explanation, But - To Put It Mildly - The World Is A Mess.

Glass Ceilings Have Been Broken, But More Have To Be Broken.

I Can't See Democracy Occurring By Force - After An Iraqi War, Because Of The Fallout From That.

Nobody's Ever Said That Pins Are A Tool Of Diplomacy.

I Have Always Thought Of Myself As A Czechoslovak Catholic.

The Interesting Part Is, That Being The United States Secretary Of State, Most Places I Went Didn't Have A Problem With Me Being A Woman, Because I Was Representing The United States.

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.

Real Leadership Comes From The Quiet Nudging Of An Inner Voice. It Comes From Realizing That The Time Has Come To Move Beyond Waiting To Doing.

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 Think That There Is Never An Indispensable Leader, You Know? I Think That There Is A Time With Dignity That One Needs To Leave.

I Don't Actually Believe In A Clash Of Civilizations. I Believe In A Clash Of The Civilized And The Noncivilized.

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

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

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.

What You Have To Be Concerned About Are The Extremists. On The Whole, We Need To Understand The More Moderate Muslims Before They Become More Radicalized.

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.

[john Kerry] Actually Stole My Line Because When I Became Secretary Of State, I Said, 'i Hope My Heels Will Fill Warren Christopher's Shoes.' So He Reversed That.

And So I Have Studied, I Have To Tell You, Revolutions And Uprisings For A Long Time. They Are All Slightly Different, But What They All Look For Is Some Kind Of A Mechanism To Go From An Authoritarian System To An Open, Democratic System.

I Think The Personal Relationships I Established Mattered In Terms Of What I Was Able To Get Done. And I Did Bring Women's Issues To The Center Of Our Foreign Policy.

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.

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.

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.

If We Have To Use Force, It Is Because We Are America.

What Distinguishes Americans From Many People In The World Is Our Kind Of Endemic Optimism.

One Of My Trips Was To Meet With The Gulf Cooperation Council With All The Saudi Foreign Ministers, And When We Started The Meeting I Said 'perhaps You've Noticed That I'm Not Dressed The Same As My Predecessors", But No-one Had A Problem And I Was Never Treated With Anything Other Than Respect...so I Did Not Have Problems With That, Interestingly Enough.

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.

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

Economic Sanctions

To Be Safe At The Expense Of The Liberty Of Other People Is A Difficult Equation.

I Hope I'm Wrong, But I Am Afraid That Iraq Is Going To Turn Out To Be The Greatest Disaster In American Foreign Policy - Worse Than Vietnam, Not In The Number Who Died, But In Terms Of Its Unintended Consequences And Its Reverberation Throughout The Region.

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

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.

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.

As You Go Along Your Own Road In Life, You Will, If You Aim High Enough, Also Meet Resistance... But No Matter How Tough The Opposition May Seem, Have Courage Still And Persevere.

I Am A Beneficiary Of The American People's Generosity, And I Hope We Can Have Comprehensive Immigration Legislation That Allows This Country To Continue To Be Enriched By Those Who Were Not Born Here.

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

I Think That We Had A Different View Of What The 21st Century Could Be Like, With Much More Of A Sense, From Our Perspective, Of Trying To Have An Interdependent World: Looking At Solving Regional Conflicts, Having Strength In Alliances, Operating Within Some Kind Of A Sense That We Were Part Of The International Community And Not Outside Of It.

The Administration Does Not Agree With Those Who Suggest We Should Deploy Hundreds Of Thousands Of American Troops To Engage Militarily In A Ground War In Iraq.

I Spent My Life Studying Communism And Soviet Systems.

There Is A Special Place In Hell For Women Who Don't Help Other Women.

Independent Women

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.

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].

The Victor Of The War In Iraq Is Iran.

You Have To Learn To Interrupt Because You Aren't Going To Get Called On.

But I Think There Are Some Who Believe They Are Actually Protecting Women, You Know, And That It Is Better For Women To Be Taken Care Of. I Think Women Want To Take Care Of Themselves, And I Think Having A Voice In How That Is Done Is Very Important. And Frankly, I Don’t Understand — I Mean, I’m Obviously A Card-carrying Democrat — But I Can’t Understand Why Any Woman Would Want To Vote For Mitt Romney, Except Maybe Mrs. Romney.

To Put It Mildly, The World Is A Mess.

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.

Our Life Comes In Segments, And We Have To Understand That We Can Have It All If We're Not Trying To Do It All At Once.

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

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.

There's Nobody Who's Had A Resume Like [hillary Clinton] That's Run For President.

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

I'm A Problem-solver.

Problem Solvers

Women Have To Be Active Listeners And Interrupters - But When You Interrupt, You Have To Know What You Are Talking About.

I Did Go To Wellesley, A Women's College. And I Am Of A Kind Of Strange Generation Which Is Transitional In Terms Of Women Who Wanted To Go Out And Get Jobs.

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.

I Am Not A Fatalist. I Have Just Been Reading War And Peace And Tolstoy Is Such A Fatalist. I Think People Can Make A Difference... I Am An Optimist Who Worries A Lot.

And Frankly, I Don't Understand - I Mean, I'm Obviously A Card-carrying Democrat - But I Can't Understand Why Any Woman Would Want To Vote For Mitt Romney, Except Maybe Mrs. Romney.

In 1953, The United States Played A Significant Role In Orchestrating The Overthrow Of Iran's Popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower Administration Believed Its Actions Were Justified For Strategic Reasons, But The Coup Was Clearly A Setback For Iran's Political Development And It Is Easy To See Now Why Many Iranians Continue To Resent This Intervention By America In Their Internal Affairs.

I Am By Nature A Worried Optimist.

One Of The Issues I Kept Saying To My Students Is You Have To Learn To Interrupt. When You Raise Your Hand At A Meeting, By The Time They Get To You, The Point Is Not Germane. So The Bottom Line Is Active Listening. If You Are Going To Interrupt, You Look For Opportunities. You Have To Know What You're Talking About.

The Cover-up, More Than The Initial Wrongdoing, Is What Is Most Likely To Bring You Down.

I Don't Think People Should Think Of Women's Issues As Auxiliary Issues - They Are Central.

Though I Am Flattered That Governor Palin Has Chosen To Cite Me As A Source Of Wisdom, What I Said Had Nothing To Do With Politics. This Is Yet Another Example Of Mccain And Palin Distorting The Truth, And All The More Reason To Remember That This Campaign Is Not About Gender, It Is About Which Candidate Has An Agenda That Will Improve The Lives Of All Americans, Including Women. The Truth Is, If You Care About The Status Of Women In Our Society And In Our Troubled Economy, The Best Choice By Far Is Obama-biden.

Democracy Cannot Be Built On Revenge And You Will Not Have The Support Of The World If You Are Intolerant And Take The Law Into Your Own Hands.

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.

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

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.

Women Can't Do Everything At The Same Time, We Need To Understand Milestones In Our Lives Comes In Segments.

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.

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.

It Takes More Than One Dove To Make Peace In The Middle East.

Our Predecessors Understood That The Ties That Bind America Are Far Stronger Than Disagreements Over Any Particular Policy And Far More Durable And Profound Than Any Party Affiliation.

But I Do Not Believe That The World Would Be Entirely Different If There Were More Women Leaders. Maybe If Everybody In Leadership Was A Woman, You Might Not Get Into The Conflicts In The First Place. But If You Watch The Women Who Have Made It To The Top, They Haven't Exactly Been Non-aggressive - Including Me.

The Other Thing That Happened Was That We Have A Tendency To Project Our Own Weaknesses Onto Another Woman. I Don't Think Men Do That Particularly.

Our Collective Experience Has Shown That When Women Have The Power To Make Their Own Choices, Good Things Happen.

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.

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

I Do Not Believe That Things Happen Accidentally; I Believe You Earn Them.

I Loved Being Secretary Of State, That's Probably Evident To Everyone Who Watched Me.

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.

Don't Make Me Into This Airy-fairy, Moralist, Idealist Because I'm Not.

I've Never Been To New Zealand Before. But One Of My Role Models, Xena, The Warrior Princess, Comes From There.

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

China Is In Its Own Category - Too Big To Ignore, Too Repressive To Embrace, Difficult To Influence, And Very, Very Proud.

I Think Women Are Really Good At Making Friends And Not Good At Networking. Men Are Good At Networking And Not Necessarily Making Friends. That's A Gross Generalization, But I Think It Holds In Many Ways.

I Think We All Are People That Are The Product Of Our Backgrounds. It's Wrong To Think That You're Not.

Life Is Grim, And We Don't Have To Be Grim All The Time.

Hate, Emotionalism, And Frustration Are Not Policies.

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.

I Think That We All Know What Evil Is. We Have A Sense Of What's Evil, And Certainly Killing Innocent People Is Evil. We're Less Sure About What Is Good. There's Sort Of Good, Good Enough, Could Be Better - But Absolute Good Is A Little Harder To Define.

I Wasn't A Normal Professor. I Had Worked In Government. I Hadn't Written Nine Zillion Books. I Was A Hands-on Professor.

It Took Me Quite A Long Time To Develop A Voice, And Now That I Have It, I Am Not Going To Be Silent.

I Think The Jobs [at The Top] Are Unbelievably Difficult, And There Is Nothing Easier Than Second-guessing People.

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.

We Have A Responsibility In Our Time, As Others Have Had In Theirs, Not To Be Prisoners Of History But To Shape History, A Responsibility To Fill The Role Of Path-finder, And To Build With Others A Global Network Of Purpose And Law.

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.

As A Child, I Really Did See Buildings Bombed, And What Makes Me Different From An American That's The Same Age As I Am Is That I Can Understand What Happens When There Is Fighting In A Way That They Couldn't.

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

I Had More Problems With The Men In Our Own Government, And Not Because They Were Male Chauvinistic Pigs But Because They Had Known Me For So Long. I Might Have Been A Carpool Mother And A Friend Of Their Wife, And So They'd Been To My House For Dinner And Things Like And They Thought 'how Did She Get To Be Secretary Of State When I Should Be Secretary Of State?' So That Was More Of A Problem.

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 Think That A President Needs To Have A Variety Of Views Presented. But Also, There Has To Be A Team Effort, Because Otherwise, I Think It Creates A Dissonance And Difficulty.

It's One Thing To Be Religious, But It's Another Thing To Make Religion Your Policy.

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.

We Went To The Same College So I Know [hillary Clinton's] Study Habits, But When She Was First Lady Of Arkansas, She Did A Lot Of Things Already For Children, And She Was Head Of The Children's Defense Fund, And That's How I First Heard Her Or Met Her, She Was Very Very Involved In Really A Very Important Social Program To Do Something About Children And Women And Education.

A Skilled Diplomat Rarely Generates Extreme Reactions.

If You Look At U.s. History Through Religious History, There Is Very Much A Motif That Shows The Importance Religion Has Played In The U.s. We're A Very Religious Country And It Affects The Way We Look At Various Political Issues.

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.

For Me, America Is Really, Truly The Indispensable Nation.

For Somebody Who Loves Foreign Policy, Being Secretary Is The Best Job In The World - But It Doesn't Happen Twice.

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

I Do Think That She [hillary Clinton] Will Prove That She's The Best, Whether She's In The White House Or Somewhere Else. I Think It Will Very Much Be A Historic Moment, When We Are Able To Say That We Actually Have Done Something Like Put A Woman In The White House. Its Very Interesting To Think About Considering Its Taken Us Long As It Has.

I Can't Go Out With A Republican.

In Terms Intellectually, [what] Shaped My Life Was The Whole Munich Thing [the Munich Agreement] That I Knew About All My Life, In Terms Of How Large Powers Make Decisions That Affect Small Countries, And The Unintended Consequences Of That. The Other Part Is I Knew About The Holocaust. L Just Didn't Know That It Applied To My Family. But That Did Affect The Way I Thought About What I Was Seeing As Ethnic Cleansing In The Balkans; There's No Question About That.

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

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.

History Is Written Backwards But Lived Forwards.

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

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.

As A Leader, You Have To Have The Ability To Assimilate New Information And Understand That There Might Be A Different View.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

I Never Dreamed About One Day Becoming Secretary Of State. It's Not That I Was Modest; It's Just That I Had Never Seen A Secretary Of State In A Skirt.

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.

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

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.

I Really Think That There Was A Great Advantage In Many Ways To Being A Woman. I Think We Are A Lot Better At Personal Relationships, And Then Have The Capability Obviously Of Telling It Like It Is When It's Necessary.

Mahmoud Abbas Is A Puppet.

Women Are More Than 50% Of Almost Every Country In The World. Countries Rob Themselves Of The Resources Of Women If They Keep Them As Property. It Isn't That Women Can't Find Work. It's Just That Women Don't Get Paid For Their Work And Are Not Recognized Properly. It's Something That Has To Be On The International Agenda All The Time.

We Have To Understand Where We Have Strategic Relationships That Require Us To Take A Different Approach. I Guess The Easiest Way To Describe It Is: Different Strokes For Different Folks.

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

My Mind-set Is Munich. Most Of My Generation's Is Vietnam.

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

It Is An Unfortunate Fact That In Many Parts Of The World Women Are Considered Property. An Awful Lot Of Injustice Is Obviously Due To That; Not Just Women's Status In The Home, But All Kinds Of Laws That Are Even More Discriminating.

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

Foreign Policy Is Now A Huge Field. It Isn't Just People Who Are Studying Political Science. There Are So Many Aspects To It In Terms Of Understanding Hard Science For People Who Are Studying Climate Change, Or People Who Are Interested In Health Policy Or Food Security, Or People Who Care About Education.

The Reason I Made Women's Issues Central To American Foreign Policy, Was Not Because I Was A Feminist, But Because We Know That Societies Are More Stable If Women Are Politically And Economically Empowered.

We Must Help Women In Every Society To Have Their Voices Heard.

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

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

Libraries Are Fun, Educational, And The Biggest Bargain On The Face Of The Earth.

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

Today, I Say That No Nation In The World Need Be Left Out Of The Global System We Are Constructing.

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.

No Matter What Message You Are About To Deliver Somewhere, Whether It Is Holding Out A Hand Of Friendship, Or Making Clear That You Disapprove Of Something, Is The Fact That The Person Sitting Across The Table Is A Human Being, So The Goal Is To Always Establish Common Ground.

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

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.

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

I Think I've Revived The Costume-jewelry Industry.

We Will Not Be Intimidated Or Pushed Off The World Stage By People Who Do Not Like What We Stand For, And That Is, Freedom, Democracy And The Fight Against Disease, Poverty And Terrorism.

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.

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.

Hussein Has Chosen To Spend His Money On Building Weapons Of Mass Destruction And Palaces For His Cronies.

Mass Destruction

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.

As Strong As The United States Is, We Can't Deal With Terrorism Alone.

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.

I Love Being A Woman And I Was Not One Of These Women Who Rose Through Professional Life By Wearing Men's Clothes Or Looking Masculine. I Loved Wearing Bright Colors And Being Who I Am.

We Don't Understand Enough About The Islam Religion And Muslim World.

We Must Be Authors Of The History Of Our Age.

I Went To College Somewhere Between The Invention Of The Ipad And The Discovery Of Fire... But I Had Gone To A Women's College.

What A Blast It Is To Be Here With Michael Moore.

There Is Plenty Of Room In The World For Mediocre Men But There Is No Room For Mediocre Women.

Iraq Is A Long Way From The U.s., But What Happens There Matters A Great Deal Here. For The Risks That The Leaders Of A Rogue State Will Use Nuclear, Chemical Or Biological Weapons Against Us Or Our Allies Is The Greatest Security Threat We Face.

Mass Destruction

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.

Trending Author

Walter F. Mondale

Category