Quotes from Madeleine K. Albright

Good guys don't always win, especially when they are divided and less determined than their adversaries

THE END OF THE SUPERPOWER RIVALRY WAS A MOMENT OF INCALCULABLE promise: the third make-or-break opportunity of the twentieth century.

Chamberlain could also be philosophical about the führer's coarse rhetoric and bullying, which he ascribed to poor breeding. However, the prime minister could not imagine anyone intentionally causing a second world war.

In 1937, Stalin ordered the executions of 680,000 people judged politically unreliable, including military officers, party officials, and members of the politburo—an incredible number.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

no country has the right to dictate to others how they should be governed; but we all have good reason to speak up on behalf of democratic values

Instead, we prepare for the next jump, then the one after, until after a lifetime of motion is past, we are startled, at least a little, by where we are and by what we have become.

An exciting position replenishes the energy it consumes.

No error is more common than to assume that the winner of an election has license to do whatever he or she may want.

Principled Realism is merely a slogan; America First is a slogan with a past.

Cosmopolitanism, once considered a virtue, is less in vogue than nativism.

Globally, there is hardly an economic, security, technological, environmental, or health-related challenge that any country can better address alone than through a joint effort with neighbors.

Many of the tactics Hitler employed to seize and consolidate power, Mussolini had adopted previously: the reliance on violent gangs, the intimidation of parliament, the strengthening and subsequent abuse of authority, the subjugation of the civil service, the affinity for spectacle, and the insistence that the leader, whether Der Führer or Il Duce, could do no wrong.

Existen dos tipos de fascistas: los que dan órdenes y los que las acatan. El apoyo popular da al fascismo las piernas que necesita para caminar, los pulmones de los que se sirve para gritar y la musculatura en la que descansa la amenaza que representa; pero eso en todo caso sería el fascismo de cuello para abajo. Si se quiere sembrar la tiranía sirviéndose de los miedos y esperanzas del ciudadano medio, se necesita dinero, ambición e ideas perversas.

The Chamberlain government was slow to realize that the führer was determined to remain indignant. Denied a reasonable ground of complaint, he would quickly invent an unreasonable one.

Those nostalgic for the region's good old days are not remembering; they're daydreaming.

To hold the line, we must recognize that despots rarely reveal their intentions and that leaders who begin well frequently become more authoritarian the longer they hold power.

By asking questions based on a lie, it makes the lie a central part of national conversation.

Odpov?? na otázku, pro? jsme tady, nám nedá to, co najdeme. Je skryta v d?vodu, pro? nem?žeme pÃ…â"¢estat hledat.

Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, King, Havel, Mandela, and many other memorable leaders have found in righteous indignation the psychological edge they needed to endure years of doubt and trial. However, such an emotion is not something everyone can control, and it has, when unleashed, enough destructive energy to turn grand potential to failure.

Instead he discouraged his cabinet from proposing any idea that might cause him to doubt his instincts, which were, he insisted, always right.

Even those who enter public life with the best of intentions are susceptible to its pull. We ought, therefore, to be mindful of our own bad habit—which is to look for and expect easy answers when the most serious problems we face are anything but.

The history of Europe—and indeed the world—is stained by the blood of nations convinced that the path to glory can be found by disparaging others and going it alone.

I am an optimist who worries a lot.