Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Tom Malinowski

Looking back on the Tiananmen movement, it is striking how modest the protesters' demands were: an end to press censorship and restrictions on demonstrations; openness about the income of state leaders; increased funding for education.

There are norms that preserve some equilibrium between chaos and stability in the world; that keep sociopaths like Assad from undermining that equilibrium, and the sense of security without which the freedoms we enjoy cannot exist.

You can usually figure what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing and why by noting the actions and values he falsely projects onto others.

Political debates in the United States can be untethered from facts, but threats to life focus minds on reality.

No disarmament regime is foolproof, and it was always understood that Assad likely hid some elements of his chemical weapons production capacity from inspectors.

We need to lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs instead of making it easier for insurance companies to charge more for less inclusive coverage.

The possibility of change in North Korea arose from its greatest calamity - the famine in the 1990s, in which over a million of its citizens died. Until then, according to defectors, most North Koreans were simply unaware that different ways of life or forms of government existed in the world.

Perhaps we could do without tragedy in art - but what about comedy? Is it a coincidence that so many of the best American humorists have been Jewish and African-American?

Proponents of change within Vietnam's government know their country will be more stable and prosperous if it continues to open up. But principled arguments don't always carry the day.

Nations have succeeded before in banning classes of weapons - chemical, biological and cluster munitions; landmines; blinding lasers.

The rule of law that China's dissidents ask for is important to U.S. businesses investing in China as well.

We need to protect immigrants who come here seeking a better life, rather than turning our backs on refugees and closing our borders and our hearts to others.

At the State Department, where I oversaw our human rights diplomacy, I often confronted dictatorships like China about their censorship of the Internet, which they justified by claiming they were merely filtering out lies. Our government cannot and should not take that path.

As a Polish American, I grew up hearing the phrase 'nothing about us without us.' To Eastern Europeans, the vow is a painful reminder of how Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt carved up their small countries after World War II, placing them, against their will, under Soviet domination.

TPP will require all countries that join the agreement to conform their laws and practices to fundamental labor rights and principles. Vietnam will have to make the necessary reforms or miss out on the agreement's benefits.

By the time I joined the Obama administration in 2014, it was widely expected that the president of the United States would raise human rights concerns in just about every meeting with a foreign leader, and meet with activists in countries he visited.

Protecting our democracy shouldn't be a partisan issue.

A robotic arms race seems inevitable unless nations collectively decide to avoid one.

Over the years, increasing partisanship has led many members of Congress reflexively to speak in favor of any military action launched by presidents of their own party while withholding support to presidents of the opposing party.

I'd much rather face the voters defending what's right and true than to have to explain selling my country and my soul to Donald Trump.

At the State Department, I oversaw the U.S. government's efforts to get information into North Korea. We funded defector-run radio stations, which had the added benefit of training North Koreans to be journalists.

Just as some Republicans despise John McCain for calling out Donald Trump, some Democrats could never accept him unless he became one of us. And he wasn't: he voted with the NRA; supported the Iraq War; elevated Sarah Palin.

Arresting opposition leaders and restricting civil society will not stop people from protesting, but it can create leaderless movements that leave no one with whom the government can mediate a peaceful way forward.

It is deterrence that has prevented the use of nuclear weapons by all states that possess them since 1945.

Let's face it: much of what we truly value in life is rooted in our experience of repression and conflict.

Words matter. Words can be a fire to the gasoline of disturbed minds.

In a totalitarian state like North Korea, a group of neighbors gathering once a week to watch the latest episode of a forbidden soap opera is committing a political act, and forming, with the market traders who deliver them this treasure, a rudimentary civil society.

Leading with its values gave the United States a sense of purpose in the Cold War.

The desire to help those struggling abroad gain the freedoms enjoyed here at home has remained a uniquely unifying force in American politics.

If members of Congress were to vote to allow a military action, they might then share the blame if the mission were to go wrong. So they demand in the abstract that presidents ask their approval for going to war but in practice prefer to let presidents bear the burden alone.

A transactional foreign policy is not what convinces people around the world to stand with America.

An American government that really wanted to stick it to the Chinese Communist Party would be reinforcing U.S. alliances in Asia, instead of threatening to withdraw troops from South Korea and Japan until they pay extortionate rates for U.S. bases.

Since the first archer fired the first arrow, warriors have been inventing ways to strike their enemies while removing themselves from harm's way.

With no guillotine, 'A Tale of Two Cities' would have been a travel guide.

An administration that really wanted to win an ideological contest with the Chinese Communist Party would stand up for human rights consistently, rather than calling journalists anywhere 'the enemy of the people.'

Qaddafi may rail endlessly about foreign meddling, but the reaction of Western governments clearly matters to his regime.

U.S. security is enhanced when we cooperate with China on challenges from North Korea to Iran to South Sudan. Our trade relationship strengthens our economy and supports American jobs.

The respect for the rights of minorities that China's Tibetan and Uighur activists champion would prevent instability that could spill across China's borders.

TPP is not a leap of faith; it is an instrument of leverage.

We already ban foreign donations to political candidates, and we should strengthen that ban with closer scrutiny of credit card donations.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the United States negotiating directly with the Taliban.

Congress has a constitutional right to help decide and limit how the country uses its military power. But to assert this right, the legislature must also live up to the responsibility that goes with it, with leaders who are willing to bear it and capable of doing so wisely.

When an issue is important to Washington, U.S. officials figure out what leverage they have and use it as assertively and creatively as they can. They don't make excuses.

I pledge to put patriotism over party, and commit to the hard work of real reform over cheap political wins, quick fixes, and empty promises.

Putin interfered in our election because he wanted an American president who sees the world as he does.

I recognize that most Americans are tired of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war. I am, too.

We learn to laugh from the cultures that suffered most - from the Russians, Poles, and Irish - not from Sweden or France (the French go for Jerry Lewis - enough said).

A computer can process information and engage a weapon infinitely faster than a human soldier.

Russia's interference in the United States' 2016 election could not have been more different from what the United States does to promote democracy in other countries, efforts for which I was responsible as a State Department official.

I was elected to fight for the people of New Jersey, to win federal investment in our infrastructure, to strengthen our health care, to address gun violence, and get back our SALT deductions.

We don't stop Russia or any other country from trying to influence public debate in the United States on any issue.

When I was in government, I urged Congress to require that information about the actual owners of companies registered in the U.S. be disclosed to the Treasury Department, and made available on request to law enforcement.

Kim Jong Un, like all totalitarian leaders, wants above all to ensure his survival. He is convinced that a nuclear strike capability is necessary to deter the United States and South Korea from threatening his regime, and to extract concessions that might prolong its life.

The United States has to be everything that China under dictatorship is not: well governed, intolerant of corruption, respectful of privacy, protective of truth-tellers and willing to help - rather than bully - the world.

In a sense, the central problem in U.S.-Russian relations has been a form of psychological projection. Putin views foreign policy as a means of enhancing Russia's - and his regime's - security, power and wealth in a zero-sum competition with other states. He assumes Americans are the same.

No alliance in history has done more to prevent war, and no alliance is more rooted in the values America champions, than NATO.

America may be a fallible democracy. But when the president sacrifices the national interest for his personal interest, we can show that unlike other countries, we have a remedy.

The advancement of democracy and human rights is as serious a business as anything we do in our foreign policy and cannot be treated as an afterthought in our relations with great powers.

A state that calculates that using a weapon or tactic of war is in its interest will generally find a way to do so.

Members of Congress concerned about human rights in Vietnam are right to maintain a healthy skepticism about its government's intentions.