Top 150 Condoleezza Rice Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “My mom was a teacher – I have the greatest respect for the profession – we need great teachers – not poor or mediocre ones.”

— Condoleezza Rice

52. “Your friends and your family, if you’re close to them, they won’t let you get too far from who you were or from who you are. And so I love staying close to people who’ve always known me. That’s probably the best leavening that you could possibly have.”

— Condoleezza Rice

53. “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

54. “Democracy is the most realistic way for diverse peoples to resolve their differences, and share power, and heal social divisions without violence or repression.”

— Condoleezza Rice

55. “Once a month I play with a chamber music quartet. I play almost no solo music anymore because I so enjoy the interaction. The members of my quartet have become some of my best friends and so I really enjoy it now in ways that I didn’t before.”

— Condoleezza Rice

56. “After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history.”

— Condoleezza Rice

57. “It’s so much a part of me that it’s almost hard to describe myself in the absence of it. I know that for me it means asking for guidance, and that in the toughest times there’s a personal savior that I can rely on. And I’m very grateful to my parents for giving me that.”

— Condoleezza Rice

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

— Condoleezza Rice

59. “We’re not going to negotiate about the terms of terrorism. You don’t negotiate about terrorism. It’s is wrong to engage in terrorism, and there isn’t anything to negotiate.”

— Condoleezza Rice

60. “Out of struggle very often comes victory.”

— Condoleezza Rice

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

— Condoleezza Rice

62. “When you’re in government, of course, you have protection and you have people who are looking out for your wellbeing, but you can’t live in a state of fear. If you do, you’re not going to do your job very well and you’re going to give yourself high blood pressure, which probably isn’t worth it.”

— Condoleezza Rice

63. “I’m a great believer in the fact that as you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that’s how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.”

— Condoleezza Rice

64. “What we will not wait for is that particular nexus of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction that is extremism, and the technology to come together in a way that is harmful to the United States.”

— Condoleezza Rice

65. “I’m a committed Republican. I believe very strongly in individual liberty. I tend not to think much in terms of group politics. I really am a kind of small government person and I’m most certainly a fiscal conservative and strong on national defense.”

— Condoleezza Rice

66. “I find that the great majority of public servants across the entire political spectrum come because they believe in the United States and they want to change the world.”

— Condoleezza Rice

67. “I’ve always said that I expected to grow up and get married like any nice southern girl, but the fact is you don’t get married in the abstract. You find someone that you’d like to be married to.”

— Condoleezza Rice

68. “My job is to try to advance American foreign policy, to try to advance the president’s agenda on democracy and human rights.”

— Condoleezza Rice

69. “So I think, if September 11 taught us anything, it taught us that we’re vulnerable, and vulnerable in ways that we didn’t fully understand.”

— Condoleezza Rice

70. “Well, of course, all of the statistics say there are fewer eligible black men in my circle. But I’ve never thought of it that way. I believe that if the right person came into my life that would have been terrific.”

— Condoleezza Rice

71. “We’re in the middle of the transformation of a society that has handled its politics through repression to a society that will handle its politics through democratic institutions.”

— Condoleezza Rice

72. “I’m saying there is no way that I will do this, because it’s really not me. I know my strengths, and governor Romney needs to find someone who wants to run with him. There are many people who will do it very, very well, and I’ll support the ticket.”

— Condoleezza Rice

73. “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.”

— Condoleezza Rice

74. “Societies that treat women badly are dangerous societies. The empowerment of women is not only morally right it is also practical in the positive impact it has on so many social ills.”

— Condoleezza Rice

75. “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

76. “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

77. “People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they’ll join your side.”

— Condoleezza Rice

78. “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.”

— Condoleezza Rice

79. “I’ve been an athlete all my life. I was a competitive figure skater, and then when I realized skating was not an adult sport I took up tennis and played that quite seriously from the time I was about 18.”

— Condoleezza Rice

80. “My parents elected me president of the family when I was 4. We actually had an election every year and I always won. I’m an only child, and I could count on my mother’s vote.”

— Condoleezza Rice

81. “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”

— Condoleezza Rice

82. “For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.”

— Condoleezza Rice

83. “As I was telling my husb – As I was telling President Bush.”

— Condoleezza Rice

84. “I don’t like anything that’s “just an escape.” To me the best part of golf is that, unlike my tennis game, I can actually get better. I’ve probably reached my plateau in tennis, but in golf I have a lot of room for improvement. I really enjoy working on my game. I like practicing. I chart my rounds.”

— Condoleezza Rice

85. “Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?”

— Condoleezza Rice

86. “I’m an American, nothing is impossible.”

— Condoleezza Rice

87. “Your passion may be hard to spot, so keep an open mind and keep searching.”

— Condoleezza Rice

88. “When diplomacy has been exhausted, the Security Council must become involved. Questions about Iran’s nuclear activities remain unanswered, despite repeated efforts by the IAEA.”

— Condoleezza Rice

89. “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let’s remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”

— Condoleezza Rice

90. “Well, there’s been plenty of ultimatums, and one thing that we better be very clear is that we can’t continue to have the kind of defiance of the United Nations, the defiance of the international community that we’ve had.”

— Condoleezza Rice

91. “You do have to keep in mind as you’re going through extraordinarily difficult circumstances, that if you stay true, true to your values, if you stay true to your principles, if you believe in these values, then you can work in that context to right policies that may not be working.”

— Condoleezza Rice

92. “No American president can support an Egypt that calls into question the historic treaty between Israel and Egypt. And no American president can support an Egypt that doesn’t fully recognize women’s rights or the rights of religious minorities.”

— Condoleezza Rice

93. “The fact is, race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident, real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counter productive. I grew up in a family that believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them. There was no room for being a victim or depending on the white man to take care of you.”

— Condoleezza Rice

94. “I don’t think anybody can take the word of Saddam Hussein and his regime, and certainly an American president and allies who are obligated to worry about the safety and security of our countries, cannot take the word of this dictator, who lies, pathologically lies.”

— Condoleezza Rice

95. “Diplomacy, if properly practiced, is not just talking for the sake of talking.”

— Condoleezza Rice

96. “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.”

— Condoleezza Rice

97. “Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq’s people and neighbors.”

— Condoleezza Rice

98. “America is a remarkable place in that social attitudes change almost imperceptibly, and then you wake up the next day and they’ve changed. But they’ve been changing all the time.”

— Condoleezza Rice

99. “The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil the better.”

— Condoleezza Rice

100. “Now, al Qaeda’s on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people.”

— Condoleezza Rice