Samantha Power Quotes

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Samantha Power

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : September 21, 1970

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

Samantha Power

It's not ideal to always be one eye on the Blackberry and two arms around my children. For the sake of mothers out there who don't have the Blackberry but do have the children and are hoping someone will be raising their voice on their behalf, it's a great privilege.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

I've been a war reporter and a human rights defender. A professor and a columnist. A diplomat and - by far most thrillingly - a mother. And what I've learned from all these experiences is that any change worth making is going to be hard. Period.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

At the U.N., I routinely encounter countries that do not want to impose sanctions or even to enforce those already on the books. The hard-line sanctions skeptics have their own self-interested reasons for opposing sanctions, but they ground their opposition in claims that America uses sanctions to inflict punishment for punishment's sake.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

We are responsible for our incredulity.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

Sanctions did indeed help to bring Iran to the negotiating table. But sanctions did not stop the advance of Iran's nuclear program. Negotiations have done that, and it is in our interest not to deny ourselves the chance to achieve a long-term, comprehensive solution that would deny Iran a nuclear weapon.

Samantha Power

Ignorance and prejudice make for bad advisers.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

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.

Samantha Power

The media is an ally when it comes to showing the truth about terrorist groups. Attacking the media will not produce a more compliant citizenry. It will produce a more alienated, suspicious and disenfranchised public, one more likely to chafe under a government's attempts at control, all to the benefit of terrorist groups.

Samantha Power