Quotes from Madeleine K. Albright

the Fascists were driving the Socialists out of cities and towns, especially in Italy's northern provinces. To advertise their identity, they wore makeshift uniforms—a black shirt, green-gray pants, and a dark fez-like cap with tassel. The Socialists had them outnumbered, but the Fascists were gaining quickly and were even more ruthless in applying force.

Why has the United States—at least temporarily—abdicated its leadership in world affairs?

do what the government demanded because they could no longer conceive of an alternative.

We need to do a better job of describing the reality we confront.

Modern dictators tend to weary of their citizens, which is why they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safety. A fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try settle people down, fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins their foot soldiers have the will and fighting power to strike first.

In Germany, belief that the American president can be counted on to do the right thing shrank from 86 percent under his predecessor to 11 percent under Trump. In France, the fall was from 84 percent to 14; in Japan, 74 to 24; in South Korea, 84 to 17.

He initiated a campaign to drenare la palude ("drain the swamp")

whether a democratic citizenry can be talked into betraying its own values.

The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn't appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

While disease is a mugger, age is a cat burglar who steals but a single day each night; and the thief has learned patience.

His down-to-earth speaking style pleased many voters, as did his reputation for shouting things that more conventional politicians were too timid to whisper. The senator's skin, however, was paper-thin, and he seemed not to care very much whether his startling disclosures had any basis in fact.

Then his face changed to a mask of hate.

Years from now, we may look back on Trump as a onetime oddity who taught us a lesson we will not forget about the quirks of democracy

Henlein was motivated less by Nazi ideology than by the lure of power and fame. His skill as a politician stemmed from his gift for lying with apparent sincerity

The idea that the United States is a nation of chumps that has spent the past fifty years getting ripped off by wily foreigners is absurd. The

We see long-term planning as necessary and deliberation as a virtue, but when we decide that action is urgently needed, our tolerance for delay disappears.

His goal was to secure approval of a law authorizing him to ignore the constitution, bypass the Reichstag, and govern by decree.

Years before taking office, Hitler told his fellow Nazis, "The Constitution only maps out the arena of the battle, not the goal… once we possess constitutional power, we will mold the state into the shape we hold to be suitable.

Already, "never again" was happening.

The desire for liberty may be ingrained in every human breast, but so is the potential for complacency, confusion, and cowardice.

With help from its friends, however, democracy can almost always be repaired, then made better.

Most of us lived through the years when spam threatened to destroy e-mail. Today, democracy is being weakened by lies that come in waves and pound our senses the way a beach is assaulted by the surf. Leaders who play by the rules are having trouble staying ahead of a relentless news cycle and must devote too much effort trying to disprove stories that seem to come out of nowhere and have been invented solely to do them in.

Why are many people in positions of power seeking to undermine public confidence in elections, the courts, the media, and—on the fundamental question of earth's future—science? Why have such dangerous splits been allowed to develop between rich and poor, urban and rural, those with a higher education and those without? Why has the United States—at least temporarily—abdicated its leadership in world affairs?

Repeat a lie often enough and it begins to sound as if it must—or at least might—be so. "Falsehood flies," observed Jonathan Swift, "and the truth comes limping after it." McCarthy's career shows how much hysteria a skilled and shameless prevaricator can stir up, especially when he claims to be fighting in a just cause.