Condoleezza Rice Quotes

There are those who would draw a sharp line between power politics and a principled foreign policy based on values. This polarized view - you are either a realist or devoted to norms and values - may be just fine in academic debate, but it is a disaster for American foreign policy. American values are universal.

- Condoleezza Rice

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

- Condoleezza Rice

It has been, after all, 11 years, more than a decade now, of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War, so that he would not be a threat to peace and security, he has ignored and flaunted.

- Condoleezza Rice

I don't think anybody can take the word of Saddam Hussein and his regime, and certainly an American president and allies who are obligated to worry about the safety and security of our countries, cannot take the word of this dictator, who lies, pathologically lies.

- Condoleezza Rice

We need a common enemy to unite us.

- Condoleezza Rice

I remember, when I was 6 years old, we were having an event at school where different dolls were on display. I said that the tallest doll needed to be on the end, and my little friend said to me, 'Oh, you're just so bossy.' I remember thinking that wasn't a good thing. But I kept insisting the doll had to be on the end anyway.

- Condoleezza Rice

Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.

- Condoleezza Rice

We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.

- Condoleezza Rice

We're in a new world. We're in a world in which the possibility of terrorism, married up with technology, could make us very, very sorry that we didn't act.

- Condoleezza Rice

Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States in intelligence, law enforcement, or military matters. The co-operation is a two-way street. We share intelligence that has helped protect European countries from attack, helping save European lives.

- Condoleezza Rice

I don't see myself in any way in elective office.

- Condoleezza Rice

You aren't going to be successful as a diplomat if you don't understand the strategic context in which you are actually negotiating. It is not deal making. It's not.

- Condoleezza Rice

After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history.

- Condoleezza Rice

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

- Condoleezza Rice

We can't afford to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban and the terrorists.

- Condoleezza Rice

I think it goes back to whether or not race and class - that is, race and poverty - is not becoming even more of a constraint. Because with the failing public schools, I worry that the way that my grandparents got out of poverty, the way that my parents became educated, is just not going to be there for a whole bunch of kids.

- Condoleezza Rice

The idea the president of the United States was warned that Al-Qaeda was going to attack the United States and did nothing about it - really? Do you think any president of the United States, if he had even an inkling there was going to be an attack, they wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to try to stop it?

- Condoleezza Rice

When you're doing collaborative music, the relationship that forms is a very bonding kind of experience.

- Condoleezza Rice

We were spending American blood and treasure to liberate the people of Afghanistan from one of the most brutal regimes on the face of the earth. That we would not use that moment to press for women's rights seems to me unthinkable.

- Condoleezza Rice

People notice if you are black. People notice if you are female. We are certainly not either colorblind or gender-blind in this country, so I'm not suggesting that it isn't a factor. But I think in the final analysis, people will take a look at the positions, and they'll take a look at the issues.

- Condoleezza Rice

I believe that while race-neutral means are preferable, it is appropriate to use race as one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body.

- Condoleezza Rice

I got the chance to be the secretary of state; I'm an international relations specialist. It doesn't get better than that.

- Condoleezza Rice

We are not race blind. Of course we still have racial tensions in this country. But the United States of America has made enormous progress in race relations, and it is still the best place on Earth to be a minority.

- Condoleezza Rice

I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person, and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.

- Condoleezza Rice

I talked about the need for American leadership, I talked about the importance of the United States to a more peaceful world, a world that has been quite turbulent in recent years, and needs a strong American anchor.

- Condoleezza Rice

I think there are still unanswered questions about Benghazi. I think there are unanswered questions, and they could be easily answered. But I think they need to be answered.

- Condoleezza Rice

That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.

- Condoleezza Rice

We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that, since 1998, there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.

- Condoleezza Rice

Let me let you in on a little secret. There is no such thing as an international community. There are self-maximizing, self-interested states that will push their interests as far as possible.

- Condoleezza Rice

Well, there's been plenty of ultimatums, and one thing that we better be very clear is that we can't continue to have the kind of defiance of the United Nations, the defiance of the international community that we've had.

- Condoleezza Rice

It is high time that the international community tell Saddam Hussein and his regime that this is not an issue of negotiation with the U.N. about obligations that they undertook in 1991.

- Condoleezza Rice

Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.

- Condoleezza Rice

Now, al Qaeda's on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people.

- Condoleezza Rice

I wish someone had put a golf club in my hands, not skates on my feet. It is a really great game for business. It's a great game for making connections.

- Condoleezza Rice

I am a professor at Stanford; I am a happy professor at Stanford. That's where I'm staying.

- Condoleezza Rice

So I think, if September 11 taught us anything, it taught us that we're vulnerable, and vulnerable in ways that we didn't fully understand.

- Condoleezza Rice

I've found that in places where women have not really been afforded full rights yet - for instance, in the Middle East - even very conservative politicians in the region will say, 'You know, my daughter would really like to meet you,' or, 'Would you send a note to my granddaughter?'

- Condoleezza Rice

Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.

- Condoleezza Rice

Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?

- Condoleezza Rice

I'm actually - believe it or not, for an academic - an aural learner.

- Condoleezza Rice

But I want to just caution, it is not incumbent on the United States to prove that Saddam Hussein is trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He's already demonstrated that he's trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

- Condoleezza Rice

But the truth of the matter is, we're an open society, we want to remain an open society, and there will continue to be vulnerability. That's why we have to meet the threats when they are not yet taking place on our territory and on our soil.

- Condoleezza Rice

What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.

- Condoleezza Rice

What has always made our country special is that it doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you're going. Our job is to make certain the pathways are open to both our boys and our girls.

- Condoleezza Rice

My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.

- Condoleezza Rice

Hamas is a little more than an enemy of the United States. Hamas, of course, is a terrorist organization - listed by Europeans as a terrorist organization.

- Condoleezza Rice

The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.

- Condoleezza Rice

If it is not possible for me to go somewhere and to be willing to encounter people with different views, then I'm really not doing my job.

- Condoleezza Rice

We will have to stand up for and promote the power and promise of free markets and free peoples, and affirm that American preeminence safeguards rather than impedes global progress.

- Condoleezza Rice

I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.

- Condoleezza Rice

Foreign policy simply cannot be judged by today's headlines that chalk up victories and defeats like so many box scores in the sports sections.

- Condoleezza Rice

The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer - we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them - we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

- Condoleezza Rice

My parents elected me president of the family when I was 4. We actually had an election every year, and I always won. I'm an only child, and I could count on my mother's vote.

- Condoleezza Rice

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.

- Condoleezza Rice

I know a lot of very stable gay couples.

- Condoleezza Rice

I think Americans are not guilty for 9/11; I think President Bush is not guilty for 9/11.

- Condoleezza Rice

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

- Condoleezza Rice

I am very fond of Jeb Bush. He's a friend; he was a terrific governor of Florida. I worked with him on some immigration and education issues.

- Condoleezza Rice

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 11 September attacks. There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it.

- Condoleezza Rice

There's no doubt that it's still a dangerous place, Afghanistan. The fortunate thing is that the United States was helping to provide security for Chairman Karzai. And it shows that the United States is committed to that regime.

- Condoleezza Rice

We will continue to work together in our common fight against terror.

- Condoleezza Rice

We can have a new vision, one even greater than the system they gave us after World War II. Everyone can pursue happiness and freedom and peace.

- Condoleezza Rice

I've been in enough positions to respect people with different views.

- Condoleezza Rice

I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.

- Condoleezza Rice

Football is like war. It's about taking territory.

- Condoleezza Rice

You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.

- Condoleezza Rice

If I'd been a better long-term planner, I'd still be in music, as a musician someplace. So I'll take it one step at a time.

- Condoleezza Rice

People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.

- Condoleezza Rice

If you love Russia, you have to love Godunov.

- Condoleezza Rice

When I talk to students - and I still think of myself more than anything as a kind of professor on leave - they say, 'Well, how do I get to do what you do?'... And I say, 'Well, you have to start out by being a failed piano major.' And my point to them is don't try to have a 10-year plan. Find the next thing that interests you and follow that.

- Condoleezza Rice

Frankly, as secretary of state, if somebody treats you badly because you're a woman, it's your fault - not theirs.

- Condoleezza Rice

The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity - and an obligation - to help them turn this desire into reality.

- Condoleezza Rice

When people don't have a hopeful vision before them or the possible resolution of their difficulties by peaceful means, then they can be attracted to violence and to separatism.

- Condoleezza Rice

I'm saying there is no way that I will do this, because it's really not me. I know my strengths, and governor Romney needs to find someone who wants to run with him. There are many people who will do it very, very well, and I'll support the ticket.

- Condoleezza Rice

When you are going up the corporate ladder or the government ladder, you have to take some risk.

- Condoleezza Rice

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

- Condoleezza Rice

One thing that education can do is it can provide us with an opportunity to understand one another better, and so while I've spent a lot of my time in the world of politics, I've always felt that it is really not politics that will solve this for us.

- Condoleezza Rice

My dad was not someone who you would strike with a billy club and he wouldn't strike back. It just wasn't in him.

- Condoleezza Rice

My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.

- Condoleezza Rice

What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow. But what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.

- Condoleezza Rice

Believe it or not, I loved acid rock in college - and I still do.

- Condoleezza Rice

People are tired of being kept from the dignity that allows them to make their own choices.

- Condoleezza Rice

The day has to come when it's not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position.

- Condoleezza Rice

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

- Condoleezza Rice

When you're on a golf course, a couple of things are very interesting. No matter who you're with and who you're playing with, people want each other to do well.

- Condoleezza Rice

I'm a very happy university professor... the best thing about being a university professor is that you see young people as they're being shaped and molded toward their own future, and you have a chance to be a part of that.

- Condoleezza Rice

I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves. I've had my fill of politics.

- Condoleezza Rice

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.

- Condoleezza Rice

I think golf can be one of those places where we act and we hope that people act as we would like them to act all the time.

- Condoleezza Rice

I would like to attract more minorities into the game. But it's extremely important that this golf look like - that golf look like America.

- Condoleezza Rice

I'm not a politician.

- Condoleezza Rice

I have enormous respect for people who do run for office.

- Condoleezza Rice

We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

- Condoleezza Rice