Madeleine Albright Biography Quotes 14 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
Madeleine Albright, born Marie Jana Korbelova on May 15, 1937, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, became one of the most influential American diplomats of her era. Her father, Josef Korbel, was a Czechoslovak diplomat who later became a prominent professor of international relations in the United States; the school of international studies at the University of Denver now bears his name. Her mother, Anna, helped anchor the family through repeated upheavals during war and political turmoil. The Korbels fled to London after the Nazi takeover of their homeland, returned after World War II, and left again following the 1948 communist coup, ultimately settling in the United States.

Flight from Totalitarianism and American Citizenship
The family's experiences with both fascism and communism shaped Albright's worldview. The refugee journey, combined with her father's vocation, formed an early education in the costs of appeasement and the necessity of democratic solidarity. In the United States she attended schools in Colorado and the East Coast and became a naturalized American citizen in 1957, embracing the civic obligations and opportunities that would define her public life.

Education and Intellectual Formation
Albright studied at Wellesley College, graduating with high honors in political science in 1959. She pursued graduate work at Columbia University, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D. in public law and government. At Columbia she studied under Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose strategic perspective on the Soviet Union influenced her approach to power and diplomacy. Her academic training, combined with fluency in multiple languages and an intimate knowledge of Europe, prepared her for roles at the intersection of scholarship and policy.

Teaching and Political Apprenticeship
Before holding national office, Albright built a career that bridged academia and politics. She taught at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where she mentored future public servants. In the 1970s she worked for Senator Edmund Muskie, mastering the legislative side of foreign policy. During the Carter administration, she served on the National Security Council staff as congressional liaison under Brzezinski, learning White House processes and coalition-building. Through the 1980s, she advised Democratic presidential campaigns and deepened her expertise in European affairs and the United Nations system.

Ambassador to the United Nations
President Bill Clinton appointed Albright U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1993. At the UN she confronted the crucible of Bosnia, where ethnic cleansing demanded action. She pressed NATO and the Security Council toward more robust measures, working with figures such as Richard Holbrooke, whose diplomacy produced the Dayton Accords, and with NATO leaders including Javier Solana and General Wesley Clark. The UN years also brought harrowing lessons; the 1994 genocide in Rwanda exposed failures of will and coordination, a tragedy about which she later expressed deep regret. In New York she navigated complex institutional politics, including the U.S. decision to oppose a second term for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, helping to build consensus for Kofi Annan's selection.

Secretary of State
In 1997, Albright became the 64th U.S. Secretary of State and the first woman to hold the office. Working alongside National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott, she anchored the Clinton administration's diplomacy during a period of post-Cold War realignment. She championed NATO enlargement to admit Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, a policy welcomed by Central European democrats such as Vaclav Havel and framed as consolidating a Europe whole and free. She supported the Good Friday Agreement process in Northern Ireland led by George Mitchell and sustained Middle East diplomacy with leaders including Yasser Arafat, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ehud Barak. In the Balkans crisis of 1999, after the failure of negotiations at Rambouillet and escalating atrocities in Kosovo, she backed a NATO air campaign against Slobodan Milosevic.

Her portfolio ranged beyond Europe. After India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, she worked with Strobe Talbott and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in an extended dialogue aimed at reducing risks. She confronted Saddam Hussein's obstruction of weapons inspections, supported enforcement actions such as Operation Desert Fox, and defended sanctions even as she acknowledged their human and political costs. She also opened a channel to North Korea and in 2000 became the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet Kim Jong Il, exploring limits on Pyongyang's missile program.

Ideas, Style, and Controversies
Albright's credo that the United States is the indispensable nation encapsulated her belief in active leadership with allies. She famously challenged risk-averse uses of power with a pointed question to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell about the purpose of a superb military. Her assertive approach drew both praise and criticism. She was faulted for the inadequacy of international responses to Rwanda and for a 1996 television remark about the costs of Iraq policy, a line she later said she regretted. Her distinctive public style included the use of brooches to signal diplomatic messages, an emblem of statecraft that she explained in later writings and exhibits.

Post-Government Leadership
After leaving office in 2001, Albright returned to teaching at Georgetown, chaired the National Democratic Institute, and built a global advisory practice as chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, as well as an investment firm focused on emerging markets. She served on commissions and nonprofit boards, and advised U.S. administrations on democracy support and transatlantic relations. Her books, including Madam Secretary, The Mighty and the Almighty, Prague Winter, and Fascism: A Warning, distilled lessons from history and warned of authoritarian resurgence. In 2012 President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Personal Life
In 1959 she married journalist Joseph Albright; they had three daughters, the twins Alice and Anne, and their sister Katherine (Katie). The marriage ended in divorce in the early 1980s. In 1997, as she was being considered for Secretary of State, reporting revealed that her parents had been born Jewish and that several of her relatives, including three grandparents, were killed in the Holocaust. Raised Catholic and later Episcopalian, she explored this complex inheritance in her memoir Prague Winter. Her family remained central to her life, and her daughter Alice Albright went on to hold leadership roles in international development.

Death and Legacy
Madeleine Albright died of cancer on March 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C., at age 84. Tributes poured in from across the political spectrum and around the world, including from Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kofi Annan's colleagues, former adversaries in Balkan diplomacy, and American leaders she mentored. Remembered as a trailblazer and a formidable advocate for democracy and alliances, she left a record of consequential decisions on NATO, the Balkans, nonproliferation, and the architecture of post-Cold War Europe. Her life's arc, from refugee to America's chief diplomat, and her insistence that ideals must be matched by action, continue to shape debates about the purposes and limits of American power.

Our collection contains 14 quotes who is written by Madeleine, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Freedom - Military & Soldier - Change - Human Rights.