Quote

You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.

Greg Mortenson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Greg Mortenson
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 27
Humanitarian
Mountaineer
Nurse
Philanthropist
Writer
Rochester
Minnesota
Change
Drop
Educated
Girls
Build
Condoms
Hand
Condom
Society
Roads
Girl
Electricity
Hands
Bombs

More quotes by Greg Mortenson

Image
My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.
Greg Mortenson
Image
Some of the most memorable moments I've had is to have my family along - who are our greatest ambassadors for peace. Politics will never bring peace, but people will.
Greg Mortenson
Image
Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu
Greg Mortenson
Image
If you really want to change a culture... empower women.
Greg Mortenson
Image
In America we now live more in fear than in hope, and eventually that will lead to ignorance and hatred. We need to have optimism that the world can be a better place, and we can leave a legacy for our children. Being bilingual, travel and studying geography, culture and religions can help.
Greg Mortenson
Image
the people who live in the last places - the people who are most neglected and least valued by the larger world - often represent the best of who we are and the finest standard of what we are meant to become. This is the power that last places hold over me, and why I have found it impossible to resist their pull.
Greg Mortenson
Image
. . . hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past.
Greg Mortenson
Image
When ordinary human beings perform extraordinary acts of generosity, endurance or compassion, we are all made richer by their example. Like the rivers that flow out of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the inspiration they generate washes down to the rest of us. It waters everyone's fields.
Greg Mortenson
Image
When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.
Greg Mortenson
Image
You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with those people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.
Greg Mortenson
Image
If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.
Greg Mortenson
Image
In tribal society, the most important thing to do when civilians are killed in a skirmish is to acknowledge the deaths, and provide compensation. When tribal clans fight, the victor is required to take care of the vanquished widows and orphans, which puts a limitation on bloodshed, and tempers warring groups to try and negotiate a compromise.
Greg Mortenson
Image
I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.
Greg Mortenson
Image
The Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the book - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.
Greg Mortenson
Image
Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life...We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.
Greg Mortenson
Image
Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.
Greg Mortenson
Image
The older I get, the more I appreciate my childhood. It was paradise.
Greg Mortenson
Image
My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.
Greg Mortenson
Image
I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Greg Mortenson
Image
I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.
Greg Mortenson