Here are 15 brilliant quotes by the former Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Laureate, Kofi Annan, who passed away peacefully on Saturday 18th August after a brief illness:
1. 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.
2. Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.
3. We need to keep hope alive and strive to do better.
4. Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.
5. What governments and people don’t realise is that sometimes the collective interest – the international interest – is also the national interest.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. We have the means and the capacity to deal with our problems if only we can find the political will.
10. The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone.
11. If one is going to err, one should err on the side of liberty and freedom.
12. 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.
13. We need to think of the future and the planet we are going to leave to our children and their children.
14. In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.
15. It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.