Top 66 Samantha Power Quotes

The United States should not frame its policy options in terms of doing nothing or unilaterally sending in the Marines.

All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.

I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for.

It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand and security on the other. The United Nations would not ask any other country to make that choice, and it should not ask it of Israel.

Changing the DNA of a large, multilateral organization such as the United Nations to deal effectively with modern threats is not easy. Indeed, when the United Nations was created in the wake of World War II, threats came almost exclusively from one state carrying out acts of aggression against another.

U.N. Security Council resolutions are only as effective as their enforcement.

For me, it’s not an option to despair. The question is: what can we do to make someone‘s life better? Take the unimaginable strides made in places like Bosnia, where I cut my teeth, and Rwanda. Their stories aren’t perfect, but I wouldn’t have dreamt they could happen in a million years.

We no longer live in an era in which foreign policymakers can claim to serve their nations‘ interests treating what happens to people in other countries as an afterthought… What happens to people in other countries matters. It matters to the welfare of our own nations and our own citizens.

When confronting most crises, whether historic or contemporary, aid agencies generally muddle along on a case-by-case basis. They weigh insufficient information, extrapolate somewhat blindly about long-term pros and cons, and reluctantly arrive at decisions meant to do the most good and the least harm.

In the absence of full-fledged Congressional investigations, American policymakers rarely look back. They are bound by continuity and fealty across administrations and generations.

When I became director of CIA, it was just clear to me intuitively, without a whole lot of science behind it, that we had expanded rapidly and inefficiently. So I arbitrarily picked a number, 10 percent, and I said over the next 12 months, we are going to reduce our reliance on contractors by 10 percent.

I happen to miss the Constitution; I thought it was a good document.

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush, who had shirked military service, succeeded in presenting himself as more reliable on national security than Al Gore.

Because it started as an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIL has long been subject to U.N. sanctions, and all countries have a legal obligation to freeze its assets and prohibit its business dealings. But countries around the world need to do more to make these sanctions work.

My style in diplomacy is my style as a human being – I’m very direct and very honest.

Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere.

Being an occupier is not good for anybody‘s global standing. It is a catalyst for terrorist recruitment.

The way governments treat their own citizens matters; it matters because it can have a direct impact on international peace and security – and on our respective national security interests.

The U.N. brings everybody together. And without it, we can’t deal with Ebola or terrorism or climate change. But it’s 70 years old. It’s tired. It’s acquired a lot of bad habits. And often it feels like only new bad habits get added and old bad habits don’t get taken away.

When it came to the Vietnam War, Mr. McNamara was an early advocate of escalation but came to realize the flaws in the American approach earlier than many of his colleagues. Yet in public, he continued to defend the war.

Virtually all of Darfur‘s six million residents are Muslim, and, because of decades of intermarriage, almost everyone has dark skin and African features.

Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth. But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others.

While I knew that individuals had in history – and still could – make a difference, it seemed presumptuous – even pompous – to imagine that I could be part of it, that I could be one of them.

There are something like 300 anti-genocide chapters on college campuses around the country. It’s bigger than the anti-apartheid movement. There are something like 500 high school chapters devoted to stopping the genocide in Darfur. Evangelicals have joined it. Jewish groups have joined it.

I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I’m a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.

If there are no consequences now for breaking the prohibition on chemical weapons, it will be harder to muster an international consensus to ensure that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are prevented from acquiring or using these weapons themselves.

I’m relieved that after all these years of doing atrocity work, I still cry my eyes out every time I read the paper in the morning. It’s surprising, actually.

The performance of international institutions will be symptomatic of the domestic political priorities of influential member states. International institutions don’t really have a life and a mind of their own.

The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn’t, what it can be and what it can’t be.

I think I would like the sort of job where you can work away in obscurity to try and improve things, without being caught up in the political maelstrom.

Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.

Knowing one thing well empowers you and gives you a set of tricks to the trade that you can apply across the board. Go deep, and it will serve you when you make your choices about where you want to leave your mark.

I would like to put forward a simple thesis that should no longer be at all controversial: it is now objectively the case that our national interests are increasingly affected not just by what happens between states, but also by how people are treated within states.

The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.

My career is not well thought out. Every choice has been instinctive and, quite literally, impulsive in many ways.

American decision-makers must understand how damaging a foreign policy that privileges order and profit over justice really is in the long term.

Half of Syria‘s refugees are children, and we know what can happen to children who grow to adulthood without hope or opportunity in refugee camps. The camps become fertile recruiting grounds for violent extremists.

You know, there is a long tradition in the U.S. of, um, promoting elections up to the point that you get an outcome you don’t like. Look at Latin America in the Cold War.

Western governments have generally tried to contain genocide by appeasing its architects. But the sad record of the last century shows that the walls the United States tries to build around genocidal societies almost inevitably shatter.

Brokenness is the operative issue of our time – broken souls, broken hearts, broken places.

All we talk about is ‘Islamic terrorism.’ If the two words are associated for long enough it’s obviously going to have an effect on how people think about Muslims.

America needs a sensible, sustainable Iran policy that can meet U.S. security and economic interests, command international support and withstand the shifting Middle Eastern sands.

One of the things that a president needs in the face of genocide is resolve.

I have only so many foreign-language neurons. When I learned Spanish, that displaced whatever Irish was left, and then I learned German, and that displaced the Spanish, and when I learned Serbo-Croatian, that displaced the German. So I’m a bit of a muddle.

International institutions are composed of governments. Governments control their own military forces and police.

Over the years, Western governments have been criticized for working with foreign police who have proved abusive or corrupt.

The U.S. government engages with many countries around the world in official dialogues on human rights.

I worry about Zimbabweans. They bend, they bend, they bend, they bend – where do the people break? How long can they go on scrounging for food in garbage dumps and using the moisture from sewage drains to plant vegetables?

I came to America when I was 9. My mother brought me.

Whatever its flaws, the United Nations is still the only institution that brings together all the countries of the world. And it is the best forum for the United States to spur countries to act – and to hold them accountable when they don’t.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

Throughout history, when societies face tough economic times, we have seen democratic reforms deferred, decreased trust in government, persecution of minority groups, and a general shrinking of the democratic space.

I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for. That can encompass our elected officials‘ adherence to law and our country’s return to the Geneva Conventions.

Serving in the executive branch is very different than sounding off from an academic perch.

My basic feeling about military intervention is that it should be a last resort, undertaken only to stave off large-scale bloodshed.

President Obama, like every other leader on Earth, is still going to be looking out for national and economic interests. States don’t cease to be states overnight just because they get a great visionary as their new president.

If your aim is to attack the United States, it is hard to imagine a more difficult way of getting here than by posing as a refugee.

When we blame all Muslims, all Syrians, or all members of any other group because of the actions of individuals, we fall into the trap of asserting collective guilt. We empower the narrow-minded ideology that we are trying to defeat.

As even a democracy like the United States has shown, waging war can benefit a leader in several ways: it can rally citizens around the flag, it can distract them from bleak economic times, and it can enrich a country’s elites.

The United States and the Obama administration have consistently opposed the delegitimation of Israel. We’ve also consistently pushed for legitimation of Israel across the U.N. system. We uniformly oppose one-sided actions designed to punish Israel, and we will continue to do so.

What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.

Since 9/11, there has been a huge leap in people wanting to get personally involved in public service and international affairs.

Every decision to use military force is an excruciatingly difficult one.

Zimbabweans are severely malnourished, and deaths from starvation occur even in the cities. The country has not yet suffered nationwide famine only because international donors have stepped in.

Rising anti-Semitism is rarely the lone or the last expression of intolerance in a society.

Initially, I tried to become an aid worker and someone who could help people, but I was unsuccessful in convincing anyone that I could be of any use. So I went and became a war correspondent without any experience in war or in being a correspondent. So that was daring.