Madeleine Albright Quotes

There's a difference between criminals and crooks. Crooks steal. Criminals blow some guy's brains out. I'm a crook.

The difference between that which is humane and that which is patriotic is a vital difference.

Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.

You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.

Torture gives you reliable and unreliable information. That's the reason why most people in the world don't do it. So this idea that you have to torture people in order to protect national security is a false argument, and I reject it.

In fact, a child is not even considered a human being.

Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don't go hungry, unschooled or sick without care. Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.

The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. If society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners.

Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.

Foreign policy that is obviously guided by interests, but that is very much also committed to shared values, so we have a platform, democracy, freedom, respect of human rights that we would like to see respected all over the world and also, a peaceful world order.

The building housing America's military brass is a five-sided pentagon, but somehow, the people in it still manage to make it the squarest place on earth. The latest evidence? A current military document that lists homosexuality as a mental disorder in the same league as mental retardation - noting, of course, the one difference: retarded people can still get into heaven.

This is emphatically an age of discoveries; but I will venture the assertion, that none but an American slaveholder could have discovered that a man born in a country was not a citizen of it.

Social justice and compassion are compatible with an intelligent respect for private enterprise and law and order.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

The difference between a crime of evil and a crime of illness is the difference between a sin and a symptom.

In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims.

I think, the left makes a mistake. If you look particularly at the state levels, violent repeat criminals are not punished enough. The average murderer is sentenced to 17 1/2 years but serves six. The average rapist is sentenced to 10 years but serves about three and a half. The average mugger is sentenced to five years and serves little more than one.

The moral difference between a soldier and a civilian is that the soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member. The civilian does not.

I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.

No human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?

The world is in need of an encompassing and of course, just and humane order in the light of which the rights of all are preserved and peace and security are safeguarded.

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day.

God's irony, that in order to fight and defeat the threat of terrorism, we shall have to be clear about the principle of justice that allows us to understand what is evil in terrorism. And that principle of justice is the claim of justice that is inherent in every innocent human life. But if that claim was there in the Twin Towers, if it was there on the airplanes that those terrorists attacked, you explain to me why it is not there in the womb!