Condoleezza Rice QUOTES

1 " Power is nothing unless you can turn it into influence. "

2 " For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. "

― Condoleezza Rice

3 " People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side. "

― Condoleezza Rice

4 " 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. That it doesn’t matter where you came from but where you are going. "

― Condoleezza Rice

5 " John Lewis Gaddis had come to visit shortly before the election and over lunch said something that resonated with me. “Never forget how really dependent the world is on America. And they know it. "

― Condoleezza Rice , No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

6 " ...if you are overdressed, it is a comment on them. If you are under dressed, it is a comment on you. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family

7 " One of the hardest things about diplomacy is to put yourself into someone else's shoes without compromising your own principles. "

― Condoleezza Rice , No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

8 " Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident,real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family

9 " Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential. "

― Condoleezza Rice

10 " Prejudice and bigotry are brought down...by the sheer force of determination of individuals to succeed and the refusal of a human being to let prejudice define the parameters of the possible. "

― Condoleezza Rice

11 " ... it's good to have female or minority role models. But the important thing is to have mentors who care about you, and they come in all colors. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family

12 " You never cede control of your own ability to be successful to something called racism. "

― Condoleezza Rice

13 " Societies that treat women badly are dangerous societies. The empowerment of women is not only morally right it is also practical in the positive impact it has on so many social ills. "

― Condoleezza Rice , No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

14 " Today’s headlines and history’s judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter "

― Condoleezza Rice

15 " I would rather be ignored than patronized, I said, pointing to the tendency of the Democratic party to talk about women, minorities and the poor. I hated identity politics and the self-satisfied people who assume that they were free of prejudices when in fact they too could not see beyond color to the individual. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me

16 " I'm an American, nothing is impossible. "

― Condoleezza Rice

17 " I would rather be ignored than patronized "

― Condoleezza Rice , Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me

18 " The fact is, race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident, real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counter productive. I grew up in a family that believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them. There was no room for being a victim or depending on the white man to take care of you. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family

19 " In theory, America was more equal than ever before, but the reality continued to tell a different story. Lyndon Johnson argued that the country could not be satisfied with this paradox. As he put it, “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. "

― Condoleezza Rice , Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

20 " [T]hat afternoon, Sergei Lavrov called me for the second time during the crisis. [...] “We have three demands,” he said.
“What are they?” I asked.
“The first two are that the Georgians sign the no-use-of-force pledge and that their troops return to barracks,” he told me.
“Done,” I answered.

[...] But then Sergei said, “The other demand is just between us. Misha Saakashvili has to go.” I couldn’t believe my ears and I reacted out of instinct, not analysis.

“Sergei, the secretary of state of the United States does not have a conversation with the Russian foreign minister about overthrowing a democratically elected president,” I said. “The third condition has just become public because I’m going to call everyone I can and tell them that Russia is demanding the overthrow of the Georgian president.”

“I said it was between us,” he repeated.
“No, it’s not between us. Everyone is going to know.” The conversation ended. I called Steve Hadley to tell him about the Russian demand. Then I called the British, the French, and several others. That afternoon the UN Security Council was meeting. I asked our representative to inform the Council as well.

Lavrov was furious, saying that he’d never had a colleague divulge the contents of a diplomatic conversation. I felt I had no choice. If the Georgians wanted to punish Saakashvili for the war, they would have a chance to do it through their own constitutional processes. But the Russians had no right to insist on his removal. The whole thing had an air of the Soviet period, when Moscow had controlled the fate of leaders throughout Eastern Europe. I was certainly not going to be party to a return to those days [688]. "

― Condoleezza Rice , No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

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