Kofi Annan Quotes
-
On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.
-
The skills you need to fight the colonial power and the skills you need to gain independence are not necessarily the same you need to run a country.
-
More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.
-
I think it is important to speak out.
-
I am a stubborn optimist: I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist.
-
I urge the Iraqi leadership for sake of its own people... to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people.
-
There is no development strategy more beneficial to society as a whole - women and men alike - than the one which involves women as central players.
-
We cannot allow situations where leaders threaten war on television or on Twitter.
-
Eating insects is good for the environment and balanced diets.
-
To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.
-
Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.
-
I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.
-
We need to think of the future and the planet we are going to leave to our children and their children.
-
What a pleasure, and a privilege, to be here in Missouri. It is almost a homecoming for me. Nearly half a century ago I was a student about 400 miles north of here, in Minnesota.
-
The intention was really to do something dignified, something that is honest and reflects the work that this Organization does. And it is with that spirit that the producers and the directors approached their work, and I hope you will all agree they have done that.
-
My own advice to people who would be in office for two or three terms is that they must accept democratic rotation: ideally, not put themselves up for re-election and allow the system to work.
-
Developing and newer democracies are much more susceptible to the tactics of populists and demagogues - they often do not have strong institutions, free press, or the infrastructure required to defend their nascent democracies.
-
More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.
-
We need to create a world that is equitable, that is stable and a world where we bear in mind the needs of others, and not only what we need immediately. We are all in the same boat.
-
When people say the U.N. is useless, I ask the question, which U.N. are we talking about? We have the U.N. that is a secretariat led by the secretary general, and we have a U.N. made up of member states who give us our mandate.
-
I think it is not just the U.N. speaking, but the concept of a third party, a third party to a conflict speaking out. You know, sometimes saying, 'Stop, this is enough. This cannot be allowed to happen,' gives the victims and the people who are caught in that situation courage, encouragement, support.
-
Unfortunately, very few governments think about youth unemployment when they are drawing up their national plans.
-
If citizens do not believe they can change their leaders through the ballot box, they will find other ways, even at the risk of destabilizing their countries.
-
Beneath the surface of states and nations, ideas and language, lies the fate of individual human beings in need. Answering their needs will be the mission of the United Nations in the century to come.