W. T. Albright Quotes

I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference... I am an optimist who worries a lot.

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.

Women have to work exceptionally hard.

I really do think about the fact that every day counts. I believe that every individual counts, and so I believe that every day counts and I try not to waste it.

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

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

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

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

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

Leaders are made by the situations they are involved in. I think that some rise to the occasion and some do not.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

If you look at my life, generally, I've been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

[John Kerry] actually stole my line because when I became Secretary of State, I said, 'I hope my heels will fill Warren Christopher's shoes.' So he reversed that.

I think the hardest part [is] the priorities. There are an awful lot of things to do [being Secretary of State].

There are a lot of similar aspects in all the religions. The question is which side of it you hold up.

I went to college somewhere between the invention of the iPad and the discovery of fire... but I had gone to a women's college.

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.

Obviously Iran is a very large problem. It's hard to decide what the number one issue [is], but that is a very threatening problem.

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.

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 other thing that happened was that we have a tendency to project our own weaknesses onto another woman. I don't think men do that particularly.

I got married, I really waited a long time - three days after I graduated.

I can't see democracy occurring by force - after an Iraqi war, because of the fallout from that.

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

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.

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

I consider it my patriotic duty as an ordinary citizen - not as Secretary of State - to ask questions. I think we have to ask ourselves the tough questions.

John Kerry knows more about more subjects than an awful lot of people. But I think it's a very hard job [Secretary of State].

I think we all are people that are the product of our backgrounds. It's wrong to think that you're not.

I don't think people should think of women's issues as auxiliary issues - they are central.

I do think that one needs to have respect for people who are older. And I really do love the idea that one can respect generations.

I do consider myself a feminist. I know the word has weird implications for people now, but I do think that its important to have women involved, whether its business or public service or...anything.

Bill Clinton valued my opinion and always made sure that my views were heard, and people knew that he wanted me to talk.

I think the jobs [at the top] are unbelievably difficult, and there is nothing easier than second-guessing people.

I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women's issues to the center of our foreign policy.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

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.

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.

Every new president inherits headaches, but President Obama has inherited an entire emergency room.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America.

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

It takes more than one dove to make peace in the Middle East.

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

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

Nobody's ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

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

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

So there really was a whole series of things that took the women of my generation a little bit of time to push forward.

I have always thought of myself as a Czechoslovak Catholic.