Quote collection
333 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge, posing an untapped opportunity to create markets, bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves."
"One must also acknowledge that there are moments in an organisation's development when fresh blood and new vision are required, which may imply that an outsider may be better suited to the leadership role."
"Let us be good stewards of the Earth we inherited. All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has a role to play in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it."
"I urge you to celebrate the extraordinary courage and contributions of refugees past and present."
"No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves."
"Reform is a process, and not an event."
"If you are neutral in a situation where one side is patently being mistreated, the conclusion is that you're siding with this wrong."
"I am often asked what can people do to become a good global citizen? I reply that it begins in your own community."
"It is within the family that children learn the values that will guide them for the rest of their lives. It is within the family that they form their earliest relationships, learn to communicate with others and interact with the world around them. It is within the family that the notion of human rights becomes a reality lived on a daily basis. If tolerance, respect and equity permeate family life, they will translate into values that shape societies, nations and the world."
"You have to wake up every day ready to start again."
"The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity - between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?"
"The United Nations, whose membership comprises almost all the States in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being."
"Globalization is a fact of life. But I believe we have underestimated its fragility."
"I used to tell the story about as a young man in high school one of the professors came in and put a broad white sheet on the board with a dot in the right hand corner and said, "Boys, what do you see?" And we all shouted, a black dot. He stood back and said, "not a single one of you saw the broad white sheet, you all saw the black dot." He went on to tell us to focus on the broader picture, don't focus on the negative."
"The war on drugs has failed in West Africa and around the world"
"We must restore the sacredness of the family as a bedrock of humane values everywhere, in peace as well as in war."
"Children are our future and if we use them in battle, we are destroying the future. We must reclaim them, every one of them, one at a time."
"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development... For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential."
"Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people"
"If we are to make poverty history, we must have the active participation of States, civil society and the private sector, as well as individual volunteers."