Samantha Power Quotes

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Samantha Power

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : September 21, 1970

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

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

Don't take for granted that the worthiness of your cause will win you allies; bring it down to a scale that people can relate to.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

There are young idealists all around the world falling in love with the Yankees now and realists who are gravitating to the Red Sox. I think the universe is on its head.

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

The inertia of the governed cannot be disentangled from the indifference of the government. American leaders have both a circular and a deliberate relationship to public opinion.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

Influence is best measured not only by military hardware and GDP, but also by other people's perceptions that we, the United States, are using our power legitimately. That belief - that we are acting in the interests of the global commons and in accordance with the rule of law - is what the military would call a 'force multiplier.'

Samantha Power