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.Collection: Religion
Football is like war. It's about taking territory.Collection: War
When you're doing collaborative music, the relationship that forms is a very bonding kind of experience.Collection: Experience
My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.Collection: Teacher
I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves. I've had my fill of politics.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Chance
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?'Collection: Women
I've been in enough positions to respect people with different views.Collection: Respect
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.Collection: Dad
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.Collection: Family
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.Collection: Intelligence
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.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Best
We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.Collection: Leadership
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.Collection: Politics
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.Collection: History
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.Collection: War
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.Collection: Chance
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.Collection: Intelligence
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.Collection: Technology
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.Collection: Freedom
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.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Leadership
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.Collection: Sports
What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow. But what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.
The day has to come when it's not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position.
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.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
We need a common enemy to unite us.
People are tired of being kept from the dignity that allows them to make their own choices.
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.
Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.
People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know a lot of very stable gay couples.
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.
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.
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?
My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.
Frankly, as secretary of state, if somebody treats you badly because you're a woman, it's your fault - not theirs.
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.
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.