Samantha Power Quotes

Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence in the face of atrocity is acquiescence.

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

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.

Success is not about who never fails. It is about who can spring - or even stagger - back up.

Violence against women isn't cultural, it's criminal. Equality cannot come eventually, it's something we must fight for now.

Without investing in the rule of law for the poor, none of the other investments we make will be sustainable.

It is easy to get used to the morning news, habituated. But don't. The morning news is yours to alter.

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

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

I like to think that as I get older I'm getting better at spending time with people who have qualities that make them worth spending time with.

You've got to deploy serious political assets around a plan [in Darfur]. And the George W.] Bush administration has never had a plan. Ever. The Europeans don't want to do anything, saying, "The Americans are in charge of that." And in fact the Americans are in charge of naming it and bringing these resolutions every few weeks to the Security Council.

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

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

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

There is a convergence of crises that makes it challenging to keep the world's attention.

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the "national interest" as a whole is defined and pursued.... America's important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

I'm going to Washington on a fateful, even historic, mission. I feel that I am an emissary of all Israel's citizens, even those who do not agree with me, and of the entire Jewish people

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.

In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.

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

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

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

We know that often holding those who have carried out mass atrocities accountable is at times our best tool to prevent future atrocities.

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.

'Acting as if...' I decided, ridiculously in retrospect, that my experience covering women's volleyball for my college newspaper was sufficient for me to at least try to become a war correspondent.

India is at the vanguard of figuring out how to exploit technology and innovation on behalf of democratic accountability.

We need to deter the Palestinians in any way we can.

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.

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

If you represent everyone, in some ways you represent no one. You're un-owned.

When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.

There is a fair amount of competition, obviously, with ISIL and the terrorist networks around the world, China also posing a different kind of threat to the rules-based order.

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

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

Re-examining our reasoning is not something that has come naturally to American statesmen.

Every working mother struggles with the BlackBerry, knowing the boss can call.

First, recognize the mistake. The main thing is taking responsibility and being authentic.

I tell young people: If you make a job choice on the basis of something other than your nose or your gut, it's unlikely to work out.... It's perilous to look ahead and be like, "I'd like to be ambassador." I would never have gone to Bosnia or spent years writing about genocide. Do it on the basis of what you can learn.... It's like falling in love. Your whole dating life, you're thinking, On the one hand, on the other hand. Then you meet the right guy, and you're not in list-making mode; you're just with the person you're supposed to be with. Jobs are like that too.

I think about Syria when I go to bed at night.

From Richard Holbrooke - and I miss him every day - I learned two things. One, prioritization: Never take your eye off the longer-term reforms. The other thing is, he was a hell of a schmoozer! So I should take advantage of my Irish love of beer and gift of the gab, and build relationships. That's a cherished part of the job, asking someone, "How did you get to be the Rwandan ambassador?" I try to take advantage of the fact that I hope to be here at least until the president's term ends getting to know my colleagues.

When I wake up in the middle of the night when I hear one of my kids coughing or crying, I think about Syria.

When I wake up in the morning, I think about Syria.

I think that the only time we will really know what then-President Trump is going to do about the set of challenges that confront him is after he has sat down with his advisers as the commander in chief, when he's looking at the threats and the intelligence from the standpoint of being the number one decider, when he's hearing from his secretary of defense, his chairman, who was the same chairman President Obama had, Chairman Joe Dunford, who is an outstanding public servant, who has led our anti-ISIL effort, on which we're making great progress.

We need to find means for cooperation.

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

Democracies are expense-averse and they think in terms of short-term, political interests rather than a long-term interest in stability.

Engaging Iran won't guarantee improved U.S.-Iranian relations or a more stable Gulf region. But not engaging means more of the same.

I believe the United States is the greatest country on Earth. I really do.

President Reagan, of course, did more than any other person to entrench the Republican reputation for toughness on national security.

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