Madeleine Albright Quotes

I always have felt that elders are really important. I think it's because, in my little Southern black culture, elders really were respected. Everybody listened to them. They may not have agreed - that's a whole different story - but they would totally listen and consider what the elder had to say.

Most young people have tremendous respect for older people's views.

I think there has always been an obsession with youth and beauty. What's missing is the equal obsession with respect for…older people…and their wisdom and knowledge and courage.

If I walk in a home, and a young man disrespects his mother or grandfather, grandmother in front of me, I'm out. Because if that's the case, he respects no one. He is not going to respect me.

We are not primitive. We live differently to you, but we do not live exactly like our grandparents did, nor do you. Were your ancestors 'primitive'? I don't think so. We respect our ancestors. We love our children. This is the same for all people.

I think it's true about people now being closer to their parents, since the '60s, really. The parents are no longer from a different planet, the 1950s ideas of American family. We could be friends with our parents. After the '60s, it wasn't like a person smoking pot was what the parents would be appalled at.

People who don't cherish their elderly have forgotten whence they came and whither they go.

I have so much respect for people that are my elders. You aren't going to hear me cursing around people that are 60 and 70 years old.

If I say to my daughter, "Go say 'hi' to Aunt Gertrude," there is a reason there. I'm teaching her manners. I think the idea that she'll say 'hi' to Aunt Gertrude only if she wants to is the biggest crock of silliness I've ever heard. Yet I meet people everyday who were clearly brought up to think that if they didn't want to say "hi" to Aunt Gertrude, that was fine.

Anybody over 40 is an older person. You better give them some respect.

The older you get, the more people think they have to listen to you.

A youth, when at home, should be filial, and, abroad, respectful to his elders.

The people in Coming of Age were far less curmudgeonly than you would think. The greater percentage said that without the young we'd be lost. One woman, a former Southern belle, now 87, a philanthropist, says, "Well, these young, their history's been stolen from them. And what have we done to make them respect us?"

People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up.

You ought never to sass old people- unless they sass you first.

All people here have political rights, social rights, rights to employment, and no one should face discrimination, but our strategic choice is for traditional families, healthy families and a healthy nation. One does not exclude the other and does not hinder the other. I think this is a balanced approach and is entirely the right approach.

Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.

The idea that addiction is somehow a psychological illness is, I think, totally ridiculous. It's as psychological as malaria. It's a matter of exposure. People, generally speaking, will take any intoxicant or any drug that gives them a pleasant effect if it is available to them.

I think people face that in any artistic field, this idea of: oh, I could do that, if I had the time.

I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.

You can't change the way people think, all you can do is give them a tool, the use of which will change their thinking.

If you're older, you're smarter. I just believe that. If you're in an argument with someone older than you, you should listen to 'em ... even if they're wrong, their wrongness is rooted in more information than you have.

Every time Mulder smiles, people say, 'God, it was great to see you smile. Mulder never smiles.' I say, 'Mulder smiles a whole lot. He smiles at least once a show.' People get these ideas in their heads and they're impossible to shake. But, to be honest with you, Mulder is every bit as vulnerable and quirky as Ally McBeal. I think Mulder has pretty good legs, too.

I'm good with telling people what I think, too, but I don't know why people are so content to treat each other poorly.

The people that are around me that give me ideas that I pass along or we try, the one thing I never do, I never give credit to anybody but myself. So I take all of the ideas. So everybody thinks that all of the ideas are mine.