Top 356 Quotes & Sayings by Condoleezza Rice
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American statesman Condoleezza Rice.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
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.
I'm actually - believe it or not, for an academic - an aural learner.
You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.
But the truth of the matter is, we're an open society, we want to remain an open society, and there will continue to be vulnerability. That's why we have to meet the threats when they are not yet taking place on our territory and on our soil.
We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.
The day has to come when it's not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position.
After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history.
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.
I got the chance to be the secretary of state; I'm an international relations specialist. It doesn't get better than that.
We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.
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.
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.
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'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?'
I wish someone had put a golf club in my hands, not skates on my feet. It is a really great game for business. It's a great game for making connections.
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.
Believe it or not, I loved acid rock in college - and I still do.
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.
I'm saying there is no way that I will do this, because it's really not me. I know my strengths, and governor Romney needs to find someone who wants to run with him. There are many people who will do it very, very well, and I'll support the ticket.
My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.
We can't afford to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban and the terrorists.
I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.
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.
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.
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.
What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow. But what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
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.
My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.
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.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
It is high time that the international community tell Saddam Hussein and his regime that this is not an issue of negotiation with the U.N. about obligations that they undertook in 1991.
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.
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.
People are tired of being kept from the dignity that allows them to make their own choices.
We will have to stand up for and promote the power and promise of free markets and free peoples, and affirm that American preeminence safeguards rather than impedes global progress.
We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.
Frankly, as secretary of state, if somebody treats you badly because you're a woman, it's your fault - not theirs.
There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
But I want to just caution, it is not incumbent on the United States to prove that Saddam Hussein is trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He's already demonstrated that he's trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
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?
So I think, if September 11 taught us anything, it taught us that we're vulnerable, and vulnerable in ways that we didn't fully understand.
When you're on a golf course, a couple of things are very interesting. No matter who you're with and who you're playing with, people want each other to do well.
We need a common enemy to unite us.
Football is like war. It's about taking territory.
I've been in enough positions to respect people with different views.
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.
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.
I could read music before I could read.
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.
I know a lot of very stable gay couples.
I think Americans are not guilty for 9/11; I think President Bush is not guilty for 9/11.
If you love Russia, you have to love Godunov.
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.
We can have a new vision, one even greater than the system they gave us after World War II. Everyone can pursue happiness and freedom and peace.
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.
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.
People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.
Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.
I remember, when I was 6 years old, we were having an event at school where different dolls were on display. I said that the tallest doll needed to be on the end, and my little friend said to me, 'Oh, you're just so bossy.' I remember thinking that wasn't a good thing. But I kept insisting the doll had to be on the end anyway.
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