Best 157 quotes of Madeleine Albright on MyQuotes

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.

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.

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.

The Framework Agreement is one of the best things the [Clinton] Administration has done because it stopped a nuclear weapons program in North Korea.

The greatest thrill in my life was to represent the United States of America.

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.

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

The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose.

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.

the purpose of foreign policy is to persuade others to do what we want or, better yet, to want what we want.

There are an awful lot of things going on that need understanding and explanation, but - to put it mildly - the world is a mess.

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.

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.

There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

There is plenty of room in the world for mediocre men but there is no room for mediocre women.

There's nobody who's had a resume like [Hillary Clinton] that's run for president.

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.

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.

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

The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran.

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.

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.

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.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

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

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

Unfortunately for the Iraqi people, instead of meeting these requirements, for six years, Saddam Hussein has lied, delayed, obstructed and tried to deceive

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".

We don't understand enough about the Islam religion and Muslim world.

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.

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.

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.

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 must be authors of the history of our age.

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

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.

What distinguishes Americans from many people in the world is our kind of endemic optimism.

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

What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.

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

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.

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?

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.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

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.

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.

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters - but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.

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.

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.