Jeane Kirkpatrick Quotes

There is no pure free-market economy.

A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.

I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Truth, which is important to a scholar, has to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

History is a better guide than good intentions.

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states.

Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal

Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom, security, and the enjoyment of opportunity.

We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.

Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations.

Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.

Mr. President, we've taken off our "Kick Me" sign.

I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred

There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion.

Look, I don't even agree with myself at times.

A doctrine of class war seemed to provide a solution to the problem of poverty to people who know nothing about how wealth is created

Solidarity was the movement that turned the direction of history, I think.

Society has never barred women from bread-winning roles, but only from economic roles that are profitable and respectable.

All of us confront limits of body, talent, temperament. But that is not all. We are, all of us, also constrained by our time, our place, our civilization.

Just as the Russians and the Soviets didn't manage to wipe out languages in Lithuania, neither have they managed to wipe out religion to the extent that we had feared.

They (american press) always blame America first!

Maturity is when we live by the truths that are in our heart and soul, truths we believe to be right for us.

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances.

I think that there is absolutely no free market in modern industrial states.

And I have no doubt that the American people generally believe the world is safer, and that we are safer, when we are stronger

The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.

Decades, if not centuries are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road [to democratic government] took seven centuries to traverse.

It was not malaise we suffered from; it was Jimmy Carter - and Walter Mondale.

Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors.

Cultural constraints condition and limit our choices, shaping our characters with their imperatives.

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.

[The American position at the UN is] essentially impotent, without influence, heavily outvoted, and isolated.

Truth, which is important to a scholar, has got to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal.

A doctrine of class war seemed to provide a solution to the problem of poverty to people who know nothing about how wealth is created.

Freedom works.

Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom security and the enjoyment of opportunity.