What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow. But what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.
Condoleezza Rice
We need a common enemy to unite us.
The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.
My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.
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.
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.
I wish someone had put a golf club in my hands, not skates on my feet. It is a really great game for business. It's a great game for making connections.
I've been in enough positions to respect people with different views.
Football is like war. It's about taking territory.
When you're on a golf course, a couple of things are very interesting. No matter who you're with and who you're playing with, people want each other to do well.
People are tired of being kept from the dignity that allows them to make their own choices.
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.
Frankly, as secretary of state, if somebody treats you badly because you're a woman, it's your fault - not theirs.
One thing that education can do is it can provide us with an opportunity to understand one another better, and so while I've spent a lot of my time in the world of politics, I've always felt that it is really not politics that will solve this for us.
There are those who would draw a sharp line between power politics and a principled foreign policy based on values. This polarized view - you are either a realist or devoted to norms and values - may be just fine in academic debate, but it is a disaster for American foreign policy. American values are universal.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
We were spending American blood and treasure to liberate the people of Afghanistan from one of the most brutal regimes on the face of the earth. That we would not use that moment to press for women's rights seems to me unthinkable.
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.
I don't see myself in any way in elective office.
People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.
When you're doing collaborative music, the relationship that forms is a very bonding kind of experience.
I'm not a politician.
When I talk to students - and I still think of myself more than anything as a kind of professor on leave - they say, 'Well, how do I get to do what you do?'... And I say, 'Well, you have to start out by being a failed piano major.' And my point to them is don't try to have a 10-year plan. Find the next thing that interests you and follow that.
Let me let you in on a little secret. There is no such thing as an international community. There are self-maximizing, self-interested states that will push their interests as far as possible.
When you are going up the corporate ladder or the government ladder, you have to take some risk.
We are not race blind. Of course we still have racial tensions in this country. But the United States of America has made enormous progress in race relations, and it is still the best place on Earth to be a minority.
Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States in intelligence, law enforcement, or military matters. The co-operation is a two-way street. We share intelligence that has helped protect European countries from attack, helping save European lives.
What has always made our country special is that it doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you're going. Our job is to make certain the pathways are open to both our boys and our girls.
I think Americans are not guilty for 9/11; I think President Bush is not guilty for 9/11.
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.
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.
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.
The day has to come when it's not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position.
If I'd been a better long-term planner, I'd still be in music, as a musician someplace. So I'll take it one step at a time.
I remember, when I was 6 years old, we were having an event at school where different dolls were on display. I said that the tallest doll needed to be on the end, and my little friend said to me, 'Oh, you're just so bossy.' I remember thinking that wasn't a good thing. But I kept insisting the doll had to be on the end anyway.
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.
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.
Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
If it is not possible for me to go somewhere and to be willing to encounter people with different views, then I'm really not doing my job.
It is high time that the international community tell Saddam Hussein and his regime that this is not an issue of negotiation with the U.N. about obligations that they undertook in 1991.
The idea the president of the United States was warned that Al-Qaeda was going to attack the United States and did nothing about it - really? Do you think any president of the United States, if he had even an inkling there was going to be an attack, they wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to try to stop it?
When people don't have a hopeful vision before them or the possible resolution of their difficulties by peaceful means, then they can be attracted to violence and to separatism.
My mom was a teacher - I have the greatest respect for the profession - we need great teachers - not poor or mediocre ones.
I am very fond of Jeb Bush. He's a friend; he was a terrific governor of Florida. I worked with him on some immigration and education issues.
Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.
But I want to just caution, it is not incumbent on the United States to prove that Saddam Hussein is trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. He's already demonstrated that he's trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.
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.
We can have a new vision, one even greater than the system they gave us after World War II. Everyone can pursue happiness and freedom and peace.
