Condoleezza Rice Quotes

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Of all forms of diversity that should be celebrated on university campuses, none is more important than supporting, nurturing, and promoting intellectual diversity.

I enjoy being around people who disagree with me; and I enjoy being in non-political contexts and activities.

A university is not a political party, and an education is not an indoctrination.

I encourage people to find and use the power of their voices just as much when I do not agree with those voices as when I do agree with them.

Schools cannot teach all minority viewpoints even if they are passionately held.

Education helps one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

He who is master of all opinions can never be the bigot of any.

A university is supposed to show you ideas that offend you and make you feel uncomfortable,

I think it is important for me to speak out on social issues. Sometimes people will agree with me. Sometimes people will disagree with me. I don't take that personally.

I think most people like a bit of freedom and hearing things that they might not agree with, rather than just having everybody shutting their mouths.

It is not undemocratic to express one's difference of opinion.

One of the hallmarks of higher education and of democracy is the ability to converse with people with whom we disagree.

I don't judge anyone of any stripe by what they read. Reading is always good for you. It's a positive act.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.

Education must, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself.

I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn't know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn't do that in Pakistan - you'd be thrown in prison.

The show doesn't drive home a lesson, but it can open up people's minds enough for them to see how stupid every kind of prejudice can be.

Universities are not here to be mediums for the coercion of other people, they're here to be mediums for the free exchange of ideas.

I always tell my students: I don't care which side you're on. I respect you too much to try to persuade you in 120 minutes a week, much less lure you into pretending that you agree with me. All I want is for you to own this democracy, to see yours, to have a stake in it.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.