Quotes from Condoleezza Rice

I've never really been a workaholic. I work very hard, but I also enjoy playing. I think it's important to have a balanced and well-rounded life.

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.

I believe our Presidents work hard and it's the loneliest job in the world.

My dad was not someone who you would strike with a billy club and he wouldn't strike back. It just wasn't in him.

I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.

I believe that while race-neutral means are preferable, it is appropriate to use race as one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body.

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.

We're in a new world. We're in a world in which the possibility of terrorism, married up with technology, could make us very, very sorry that we didn't act.

We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.

The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity - and an obligation - to help them turn this desire into reality.

It has been, after all, 11 years, more than a decade now, of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War, so that he would not be a threat to peace and security, he has ignored and flaunted.

We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.

I talked about the need for American leadership, I talked about the importance of the United States to a more peaceful world, a world that has been quite turbulent in recent years, and needs a strong American anchor.

But the truth of the matter is, we're an open society, we want to remain an open society, and there will continue to be vulnerability. That's why we have to meet the threats when they are not yet taking place on our territory and on our soil.

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer - we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them - we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that, since 1998, there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.