Condoleezza Rice Quotes

47 Sourced Quotes

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

Condoleezza Rice
Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.

Condoleezza Rice
The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most important condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and stability. The current neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to maintain peace.

Condoleezza Rice
In terms of the enhanced interrogation and so forth, anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer, the president wanted to do. Nothing that was illegal. And nothing that was going to make the country less safe. Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans. You were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again... We were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture.

Condoleezza Rice
Russia's a little bit like a critically ill patient. You have to get up every day and take the pulse and hope that nothing catastrophic happened the night before.

Condoleezza Rice
... those hostilities were not very well contained, as we found out on September 11th, and so the notion that somehow policies that finally confront extremism are actually causing extremism I find grotesque.

Condoleezza Rice
Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident, real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive.

Condoleezza Rice
I don't know anyone who is more admired and respected in the international community than President Karzai, for his strength, for his wisdom and for his courage to lead this country, first in defeat of the Taliban and now a democratic and unified Afghanistan. And I can tell you I am with foreign ministers and with heads of state all over the world. I sit in the councils of NATO. I sit with the EU. I sit with people all over the world and there is great admiration for your president and also for what the Afghan people are doing here.

Condoleezza Rice
I don't think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile

Condoleezza Rice
You see, this war came to us, not the other way around.

Condoleezza Rice
This test has much in common with the other great challenges that are defining this young century — from weapons proliferation, to the spread of disease, to transnational terrorism. These are truly global problems, and no one nation, no matter how much power or political will it possesses, can succeed alone. We all need partners, and we all need to work in concert.

Condoleezza Rice
Sometimes people decide to write reports even though they haven't been to Guantanamo. And so I would just suggest that people look at some of the work that's been done by people who have been there. But that's not to say that we will not be very glad at the day that conditions permit the closure of Guantanamo and the trying of its inhabitants or for their release.

Condoleezza Rice
Well, that's not how I read the statement … After all, do Iraqis really want to — any Iraqi, sitting around that table, want to suggest that killing an innocent Iraqi child standing at a bus stop is legitimate? Or that killing Iraqi soldiers who are lining up at recruitment centers is legitimate? Or even that multinational forces — who by the way are there under a UN mandate — are somehow legitimate targets?

Condoleezza Rice
And so the administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice
... it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.

Condoleezza Rice
At no time did I intend to, or do I believe that I did put forward false information to the American people.

Condoleezza Rice
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.

Condoleezza Rice
Senator, I'm happy to continue the discussion, but I really hope that you will not imply that I take the truth lightly.

Condoleezza Rice
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed.

Condoleezza Rice
When are we going to stop making excuses for the terrorists and saying that somebody is making them do it? No, these are simply evil people who want to kill.

Condoleezza Rice
In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.

Condoleezza Rice
These people are making a choice for peace and that means that the time is coming in which this insurgency will have no foothold, in which it will be defeated, defeated by Iraqis and in which we can fully come home.

Condoleezza Rice
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.

Condoleezza Rice
There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 11 September attacks. There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it.

Condoleezza Rice
... there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor, you'll have a very different kind of Middle East. And I know that from the point of view of not just monetary costs, but the sacrifice of American lives, a lot has been sacrificed for Iraq, a lot has been invested in Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice
I have no doubt that as the Iraqi security forces get better, and they are getting better and they are holding territory and they are doing these things with minimal help, that we are going to be able to bring down the levels of our forces. And I have no doubt that that's going to happen in a reasonable time frame.

Condoleezza Rice
... I am proud of the decision of this Administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 25 million Iraqis. And I'm proud to see an Iraq that is now emerging with a stronger government, a truly multiethnic, multi-sectarian government that's about to have its second set of elections, that's inviting private investment into Iraq, and that is making peace with its Arab neighbors.

Condoleezza Rice
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.

Condoleezza Rice
In light of 50 years of bondage of Eastern Europe, [invading the Soviet Union in 1948 to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons] was probably a reasonable thing to do.

Condoleezza Rice
I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically.

Condoleezza Rice