Madeleine Albright Quotes

American agents... are the only persons authorized to hold councils of a political nature.

The Constitution is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.

Tell the Arch-Duchess that she may boss her own immigrants, but she can't boss the American consul.

I don't want the chair of the government because it will be controlled by the U.S. and I don't want to be controlled by the U.S.

Venezuelan interests are to be defended by Venezuela. The U.S. should defend the interests of the U.S. Where are the U.S. people, where are the intellectuals, who could put limits on their government?

You will never see President Bachmann step one toe out of the United States and apologize for this country.

We would not have our politics distracted and embittered by the dissensions of other lands.

I started, actually, as an analyst on African affairs, mainly on Al Jazeera. I remember the first few series were about Saudi students, and the negotiations between the government and the Sudanese rebels in the south. And then, slowly, I was speaking about Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and a few other places.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our government.

First of all, the world criticizes American foreign policy because Americans criticize American foreign policy. We shouldn't be surprised about that. Criticizing government is a God-given right - at least in democracies.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.

Bringing democratic control to the conduct of foreign policy requires a struggle merely to force the issue onto the public agenda.

The United States influences government and life everywhere else.

I don't know that there is one serious American representative that will advise Israel to sit with a terrorist government and negotiate with them.

Uncritical American boosterism - automatic endorsement of every government action - is myopic and self-defeating.

I would have a democratic process for people to get together and talk about the way they want the government to conduct business with China.

We've had administrations where our State Department was an outpost of the British Foreign Office for altogether too long.

You help us pay for the war we’ll fight; we’ll launch it while you’re asleep at night. We don’t need friends all around the world; We’ll buy our friends with our flag unfurled, And spread our arms on a global scale To show the world that we still prevail. Oh, we’re not leaders inspiring peace, But we’re in power as the world’s police. So pay your tax for our little war, And we’ll not ask for any more. This year!

The Secretary of State exists only to recognize the existence of a world which Congress would rather ignore ... Since the first day the Senate existed, it has always intrigued against the Secretary of State ...

The Secretary of State has always stood as much alone as the historian. Required to look far ahead and around him, he measures forces unknown to party managers, and has found Congress more or less hostile since Congress first sat.

You'd make a great Secretary of State because State Department personnel don't answer questions completely either.

When in the course of European diplomacy it becomes necessary for one people to let another dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a third, and to assume among the powers of the earth the desperate and unequal station to which the will of an International Congress condemns them, a decent respect to the cannon of their protectors requires that they should say nothing about the causes which compel them to accept the situation.

You cannot let America’s destiny be determined by a bunch of foreign journalists.

I don’t care a damn about New Guinea. And I am not afraid of German colonization, but I don’t like being cheeked by Bismarck.