Albright Quotes & Sayings

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. — Madeleine Albright

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee - working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below. — Madeleine Albright

NATO has been a thread throughout my life. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

My mind-set is Munich. Most of my generation's is Vietnam. — Madeleine Albright

I would like for people to not be stuck by the rules of what is expected of a classical musician. If you really want to do something different, don't be afraid to do so. Think of music itself and not the rules or expectations of people. — Charlie Albright

The lingering effects of war can inspire callousness even after the guns have fallen silent. Many of us have seen the notorious clip from 60 Minutes in which Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, declared that the price of half a million dead children as a result of the sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s had been worth it. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

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

Our collective experience has shown that when women have the power to make their own choices, good things happen. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Women today are bombarded with so many messages, like we should have Naomi Campbell's body and Madeleine Albright's career. — Helen Fielding

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. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Tell me,' the man leans forward ans says, 'have you heard of a lady called Madeleine? No? In 1996, this lady named Albright Madeleine, the US ambassador to the United Nations, was asked on television how she felt about the fact that five hundred thousand Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions? Do you know what she said? She said that it was "a very hard choice" but "we think the price is worth it". These are her exact words. How do you feel about that?
'How do you think I feel about that? And I would take your love for children more seriously if you didn't have children cleaning your floors. — Nadeem Aslam

The magic of America is that we're a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom. — Madeleine Albright

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

I loved being Secretary of State, that's probably evident to everyone who watched me. — Madeleine Albright

As with eggs, there is no such thing as a poor doctor, doctors are either good or bad. — Fuller Albright

What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change. — Madeleine K. Albright

The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics. — Madeleine Albright

The difference between humans and other mammals is that we know how to accessorize. — Madeleine Albright

The road to success can take a detour. I tell people that I don't care if they came from Yale or jail, it's what you do from today that counts. — Andy Albright

What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about, if we can't use it? — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

An intelligent patient, private or otherwise, to whom you have taken the trouble to explain the nature of the investigation, makes the best laboratory animal. — Fuller Albright

If you play it safe, middle of the road with all the right notes, you might win. If you are unique and have too much personality, you might easily score a '0' in competition. — Charlie Albright

The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran. — Madeleine Albright

Perspective, we can only get it when we look beyond this life and realize we're not alone — Kevin Albright

The American Dream means being part of a society that allows you to be or do whatever you want, and to have a sense that your individual optimism and hard work will be rewarded. It exists outside of the U.S. as well as inside. People continue to come here because they want to improve their lives, they want to be able to support themselves and they want to live in freedom. A lot of people who criticize this country still send their children here to study. — Madeleine Albright

I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay. — Scott Ritter

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. — Madeleine Albright

Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Glass ceilings have been broken, but more have to be broken. — Madeleine Albright

I was a little girl in World War II and I'm used to being freed by Americans. — Madeleine Albright

People tend to box little girls in. They teach them to sit properly and stand quietly and not attract attention. Sports is one place where girls can be free and enjoy the exhilaration of movement. — Tenley Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

The Bible towers in content above all earlier religious literature; and it towers just as impressively over all subsequent literature in the direct simplicity of its message and ... its appeal to men of all lands and times. — William F. Albright

I loved what I did. I could've been secretary of state for ever. — Madeleine Albright

We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction. — Madeleine Albright

For the past 10 years I have had the interesting experience of observing the development of Parkinson's syndrome on myself. As a matter of fact, this condition does not come under my special medical interests or I would have had it solved long ago. ... The condition has its compensations: one is not yanked from interesting work to go to the jungles of Burma ... one avoids all kinds of deadly committee meetings, etc. — Fuller Albright

I think the underlying purpose is expression. It's not about technique, it's not about hitting the right note, writing the perfect prose, having the perfect brushstroke. It's about expression of oneself, the things around you, and the emotions. I think expression is the one word that I would use, whether it's for sorrow, tragedy, joy, or even the need to express and be heard. — Charlie Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

I actually think that many of the musicians who have something meaningful to say don't win competitions. An incredible pianist like Horowitz had so much to say, but he might not win anything in competition because of his wrong notes. — Charlie Albright

I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems
personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to every thing that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not a first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here. — Madeleine K. Albright

The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Without hesitation but with a sense of entitlement, he lifted my hand to his lips. He was gentlemen-like in every way ... I don't know why I wondered if it was an act or for real. — Laura Albright

I've never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons ... and we all found that hard to believe. — Madeleine Albright

If you do not believe that listening to the best people in the business telling you what they know will help you succeed, then you have allowed your ego and arrogance to get the best of you. — Andy Albright

I wasn't a normal professor. I had worked in government. I hadn't written nine zillion books. I was a hands-on professor. — 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. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today. — William F. Albright

Showing up is important and it is a big part of becoming successful. — Andy Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

If there's nobody in your way, you're not going anywhere. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

You have to learn to interrupt because you aren't going to get called on. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Go for it, never back down, and don't give in, because there's no greater satisfaction in life than using your gifts to help others and to contribute to your community and country. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Beneath Albright's office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place. In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. The crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day. — Kit Habianic

A great task has been completed and an even larger one remains. — Madeleine Albright

Sisters and brothers are the truest, purest forms of love, family and friendship, knowing when to hold you and when to challenge you, but always being a part of you. — Carol Ann Albright-Eastman

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. — Madeleine Albright

Today, I say that no nation in the world need be left out of the global system we are constructing. — Madeleine Albright

I think women want to take care of themselves, and I think having a voice in how that is done is very important. — Madeleine Albright

My parents were of the generation who thought they were the children of a free Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in central Europe. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

As you go along your 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. — Madeleine Albright

You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole. — Erica Albright

I spent my life studying communism and Soviet systems. — Madeleine Albright

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 wiht the knobs all you wanted, but unless you were careful, what you would see often depended more on what you expacted or hoped to see than on what was really there. — Madeleine K. Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

I believe that my parents did wonderful things for us. — Madeleine Albright

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 may 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. — Madeleine K. Albright

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen. — Madeleine Albright

You can't just think that you will get a job for no good reason ... And I think that the other part is you have to work your way up, you know I did a lot of Xeroxing and getting coffee ... I always did what I was asked to do. I delivered. People knew that I would get things done and get them done well. And that is a big part of our resumes, are based on being responsible and being willing to do what needed to be done. — Madeleine Albright

Women have to work exceptionally hard. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

So people are talking about revolution. What a revolution it would be to have a woman president. — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

Any theory is better than no theory. — Fuller Albright

I've never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there. — Madeleine Albright

I had one of those light bulb 'a ha' moments while screening 'Good Will Hunting' in Camp David in 1998 - Madeleine Albright and the Clintons were there, and I just became really inspired by all of these amazing people. I left the screening asking myself what I could do. — Lawrence Bender

Chloe narrowed her eyes. "Americans are all the same. Arrogant, self-entitled trash. You are evidently no exception." She looked away. "Huh, and here I assumed you had the corner on self-entitlement. Then again, I guess it complements that elitist attitude you've got going on. — Emily Albright

I just can't seem to paint nice things. — Ivan Albright

When somebody is flying airplanes into buildings and killing innocent people in the name of God, it makes you question why do they have that interpretation and somebody else has another interpretation, and how many people of Muslim faith would agree with that, and what are the different aspects of different people's religions that is so divisive, rather than being unifying? — Madeleine Albright

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. — Madeleine Albright

With Albright at the helm of the State Department, Osama bin Laden ran wild throughout the Middle East, the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes under her nose, and we staged a pre-emptive attack solely for purposes of regime change based on false information presented to the American people by Albright about a world leader who was not an imminent threat to the United States. Slobodan Milosevic wasn't even a latent, long-term, hypothetical threat. — Ann Coulter

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. — Madeleine Albright

Loneliness is not a fault but a condition of existence. — Ivan Albright