Madeleine Albright Quotes

There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume.

The reason I made women's issues central to American foreign policy, was not because I was a feminist, but because we know that societies are more stable if women are politically and economically empowered.

Freedon succeeds from the moment people stop looking to others to improve their lives and start taking responsibility.

If there's nobody in your way, you're not going anywhere.

Embrace the faith that every challenge surmounted by your energy; every problem solved by your wisdom; every soul stirred by your passion; and every barrier to justice brought down by your determination will ennoble your life, inspire others, serve your country, and explode outward the boundaries of what is achievable on this earth.

As you go along your own road in life, you will, if you aim high enough, also meet resistance... But no matter how tough the opposition may seem, have courage still and persevere.

Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing.

What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.

I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it.

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.

History is written backwards but lived forwards.

I have said this many times, that 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.

You have to learn to interrupt because you aren't going to get called on.

We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history but to shape history, a responsibility to fill the role of path-finder, and to build with others a global network of purpose and law.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person's shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn't mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten high school.

The world would be entirely different if it were run by women. I think it is true that we are more seeking consensus and don't have such big egos and have a variety of different ways of trying to get along. But anybody who says that the world would be better has forgotten high school. It depends on who the women are.

To put it mildly, the world is a mess.

If intelligence were a television set, it would be an early black-and-white model with poor reception, so that much of the picture was gray and the figures on the screen were snowy and indistinct. You could fiddle with the knobs all you wanted, but unless you were careful, what you would see often depended more on what you expected or hoped to see than on what was really there.

Our collective experience has shown that when women have the power to make their own choices, good things happen.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all - make us laugh, think, cry and cheer - preferably in that order.

The cover-up, more than the initial wrongdoing, is what is most likely to bring you down.

I am by nature a worried optimist.