Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; b. May 15, 1937) is a Czechoslovakian-born American politician and diplomat. She is the first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State. She was nominated by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0. She was sworn in on January 23, 1997. Albright currently serves as a professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She holds a PhD from Columbia University and numerous honorary degrees. In May 2012, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Barack Obama. Secretary Albright also serves as a director on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Albright is fluent in English, French, Russian, and Czech; she speaks and reads Polish and Serbo-Croatian as well. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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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.
Armageddon is not a foreign policy.
Hate, emotionalism, and frustration are not policies.
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.
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 think the administration has really undermined America's power and reputation and that Iraq may go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy, which means that I think it's worse than Vietnam in its unintended consequences and for our reputation.
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 was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.
I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below.
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.
Our nation's memory is long and our reach is far.
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 then 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 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.
We live in an image society. Speeches are not what anybody cares about; what they care about is the picture.
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.
What really troubles me is that democracy is getting a bad name because it is identified with imposition and occupation.
What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?
When a politician starts preaching, I tend to react the same way as when a preacher starts talking politics. I become very, very wary.
When asked what she considered the greatest mistake of the George W. Bush administration, interview with Deborah Solomon, New York Times (April 23, 2006)
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.
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(May 15 is also the birthday of Clifton Fadiman and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)
Categories: Madeleine Albright, Quotes of the day
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