Kofi Annan Quotes

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Kofi Annan

Profession : Statesman

Birth : April 8, 1938

In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.

Kofi Annan

Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community.

Kofi Annan

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

Kofi Annan

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.

Kofi Annan

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.

Kofi Annan

We need to keep hope alive and strive to do better.

Kofi Annan

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.

Kofi Annan

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.

Kofi Annan

On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.

Kofi Annan

Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.

Kofi Annan

It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.

Kofi Annan

What governments and people don't realise is that sometimes the collective interest - the international interest - is also the national interest.

Kofi Annan

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.

Kofi Annan

Change is a process which has to be managed.

Kofi Annan

As long as inequality and other social problems plague us, populists will try to exploit them.

Kofi Annan

Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation.

Kofi Annan

I am a stubborn optimist: I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist.

Kofi Annan

Eating insects is good for the environment and balanced diets.

Kofi Annan

We have to choose between a global market driven only by calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face.

Kofi Annan

When economic conditions are difficult, people tend to be less generous and protect themselves; the question of solidarity doesn't mean much to them at that time.

Kofi Annan