50 Condoleezza Rice Quotes On Life, Leadership, And Success

Condoleezza Rice is a prominent and successful American educator and politician. Condoleezza’s story and life’s work are known by many and for good reason. Part of what makes her success so admirable and inspiring is what it took for her to achieve it.

Though Condoleezza faced racism early on from growing up in the deeply segregated South, she didn’t let anything discourage her. She continued to push past adversity and became the first woman and the first African American woman to achieve many notable positions. These firsts include the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University, the first African American woman (and woman) to serve as the United States national security advisor, and the first African American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State. While Condoleezza retired from politics in 2009(after serving four years as Secretary of State), she’s currently a Professor at Stanford where she spends her time educating and inspiring others.

If you need life advice or words of motivation, Condoleezza Rice has many powerful words of affirmation. She’s no stranger to hardship in life and has experienced firsthand what it takes to be a leader and how to achieve success. Here are 50 of the best Condoleezza Rice quotes on life, leadership, and success.

Condoleezza Rice Quotes on Leadership

1. “Great leaders never accept the world as it was and always work for the world as it should be.”—Condoleezza Rice

2. “Every good leader is a part manager and every good manager is a part leader.”—Condoleezza Rice

3. “Truly remarkable leadership is not just about motivating others to follow, it’s about inspiring them to become leaders themselves and setting the stage for even greater opportunities for future generations”—Condoleezza Rice

4. “The day has to come when it’s not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position.”―Condoleezza Rice

5. “The first step for a leader is to be right with yourself. Integrity is the basis of leadership.”―Condoleezza Rice

6. “We need to move beyond the idea that girls can be leaders and create the expectation that they should be leaders.”―Condoleezza Rice

7. “Leading in a complex world means recognizing the simple things you can do to make things better.”―Condoleezza Rice

8. “I think that the United States has always been most effective when it is leading both from power and principle.”―Condoleezza Rice

9. “If you cannot allow people to do their jobs … nobody with substance and creativity will work for you.” —Condoleezza Rice

10. “If you are deciding that you’re going to try to play the role of bringing people together, bridging differences, you have to take your own ego aside for a bit. Rather than impose my views, my role is to listen very carefully to everybody and to see if I can hear things that might suggest there are common beliefs here.”—Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice Quotes on Success

11. “What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow. But what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.”—Condoleezza Rice

12. “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.”—Condoleezza Rice

13. “When you are going up the corporate ladder or the government ladder, you have to take some risk.”—Condoleezza Rice

14. “Prejudice and bigotry are brought down…by the sheer force of determination of individuals to succeed and the refusal of a human being to let prejudice define the parameters of the possible.”—Condoleezza Rice

15. “Power is nothing unless you can turn it into influence.”—Condoleezza Rice

16. “Education is of no value and talent is worthless – unless you have an unwavering aim. Never find yourself without a compass.”—Condoleezza Rice

17. “You will make a difference in the world, but not immediately. Your first obligation is to find something you like doing because if you like doing it, you’ll do it well.”—Condoleezza Rice

18. “I’ve never really been a workaholic. I work very hard, but I also enjoy playing. I think it’s important to have a balanced and well-rounded life.”—Condoleezza Rice

19. “It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails when you’re trying to make a plan work.”—Condoleezza Rice

20. “When somebody underestimated me, it made me want to prove them wrong.”—Condoleezza Rice

21. “I’m a strong believer that you have to have an equal opportunity to fail and to try things that are hard. I always tell my students, “Don’t just take things that are easy for you. If you’re really good at math, don’t take just math. Take classes that make you write. If you’re a really great writer, but bad at math, take math and make yourself work your way through it.”—Condoleezza Rice

22. “Your passion may be hard to spot, so keep an open mind and keep searching.”—Condoleezza Rice

23. “I think the truth of the matter is, people who end up as ‘first’ don’t actually set out to be first. They set out to do something they love and it just so happens that they are the first to do it.”—Condoleezza Rice

24. “Most days are not overwhelmingly successful in your life. And what really marks whether you’re going to be successful is how well you deal with the bad days, not how well you deal with the good ones.”—Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice Quotes on Politics and Patriotism

25. “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.”—Condoleezza Rice

26. “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.”—Condoleezza Rice

27. “Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person’s God-given potential.”—Condoleezza Rice

28. “The fact is, race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident, real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive. I grew up in a family that believed that you might not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them. There was no room for being a victim or depending on the white man to take care of you.”—Condoleezza Rice

29. “We need a common enemy to unite us.”—Condoleezza Rice

30. “We’re not going to negotiate about the terms of terrorism. You don’t negotiate about terrorism. It’s is wrong to engage in terrorism, and there isn’t anything to negotiate.”—Condoleezza Rice

31. “I think America is still a bright, shining city on the hill – not because we’re perfect but because we struggle in our imperfections every day.”—Condoleezza Rice

32. “People have the right to protest – that’s what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.”—Condoleezza Rice

33. “Our work has only begun. In our time we have a historic opportunity to shape a global balance of power that favors freedom and that will therefore deepen and extend the peace. And I use the word power broadly because even more important than military and indeed economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope.”—Condoleezza Rice

34. “Human beings are not perfect. Their institutions are not perfect, but they have to keep trying. And America has to help people keep trying.”—Condoleezza Rice

Condoleeza Rice Quotes on Life

35. “Life is full of surprises and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure-do it well, enjoy it-and then, not now, think about what comes next.”—Condoleezza Rice

36. “Every life is worthy and every life is capable of greatness. We have an obligation to make sure that opportunity for greatness is there.”—Condoleezza Rice

37. “You can never ask others to do something you would not do. That is integrity.”—Condoleezza Rice

38. “You have to have a strong sense of your values and a strong sense of who you are because there are a lot of events and a lot of people who will pull you in this direction or that direction.”—Condoleezza Rice

39. “Differences can be a strength.”—Condoleezza Rice

40. “You know, I’ve never believed, in anything, that you had to have role models who looked like you to do something. If I’d been waiting for a black, female, soviet specialist role model, I’d be still waiting.”—Condoleezza Rice

41. “Your friends and your family, if you’re close to them, they won’t let you get too far from who you were or from who you are. And so I love staying close to people who’ve always known me. That’s probably the best leavening that you could possibly have.”—Condoleezza Rice

42. “Out of struggle very often comes victory.”—Condoleezza Rice

43. “The sooner you learn that life is not fair, the better off you’ll be, because you’ll spend less time railing against life’s unfairness and feeling aggrieved and entitled, and more time figuring out how to maximize your assets, and your talents and how to deal with things that you’re not very good at.”—Condoleezza Rice

44. “If you’re always in the company of people who agree with you, you’re going to think of people who don’t agree with you as venal or stupid. I constantly tell my students that if they’re in the company of people who always say “amen” to what they say, find another company. And that is the source of illiberalism when you are unable to listen to someone who thinks differently. That’s when democracies are in trouble.”—Condoleezza Rice

45. “It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling – and indeed healthy – to ask why you have been given so much.”—Condoleezza Rice

46. “I firmly believe you never should spend your time being the former anything.”—Condoleezza Rice

47. “The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.”—Condoleezza Rice

48. “We’re all products of our environment, and I suspect that strength of will – the feeling, “I’m going to be able to do whatever you put in front of me” – is honed in an environment where not everything is easy. Ironically, growing up in that environment, you don’t have a sense of aggrievement or entitlement. You just have a sense of overcoming.”—Condoleezza Rice

49. “I laugh almost every day. I have a good sense of humor, so I’m always finding something funny.”—Condoleezza Rice

50. “The most important lesson I think I could impart is don’t let anyone determine what your horizons are going to be. You get to determine those yourself. The only limitations are whatever particular talents you happen to have and how hard you’re willing to work. And if you let others define who you ought to be, or what you ought to be because they put you in a category, they see your race, they see your gender and they put you in a category. You shouldn’t let that happen.”—Condoleezza Rice