Quotes from Kofi Annan

Bilgi güçtür, bilgi özgürle?tirir.

Il y a des moments où le recours à la force peut être légitime pour poursuivre la paix.

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.

I think the US and UK thought if they gave a bit more time to Israel, they would crush Hezbollah. But it became very obvious that was an unwinnable war.

No single solution or actor can deal with the complex and interrelated challenges to electoral integrity arising from manipulated data, hate speech, and fake news. These phenomena are not new; they have been part of electoral cycles since the advent of democracy.

Gather the five virtues (Dignity, Confidence, Courage, Compassion, and Faith). Then you are a man.

Once you are really challenged, you find something in yourself. Man doesn't know what he is capable of until he is asked.

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.

More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.

...there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.

When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.

Women themselves have the right to live in dignity, in freedom from want and freedom from fear. On this International Women's Day, let us rededicate ourselves to making that a reality.

The Arab Spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence, and everybody else wants it.

If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world's people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?

Governments have to conclude a fair, universal, and binding climate agreement, by which every country commits to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

You need younger men in Africa, men and women in African politics.

Time and again, when member states and the governments are faced with an insoluble problem, and they're under pressure to do something, that something usually ends up being referred to the U.N.

...let us continue to work together to develop and nurture in future generations a culture of human rights, to promote freedom, security and peace in all nations.

The global work of the United Nations is not without reason compared to that of a family - striving for a common goal in concert with all members for a better future.

The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone.

I think that my darkest moment was the Iraq war and the fact that we could not stop it.

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.

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.

We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the world's people share the benefits of globalization.