Quote

The future belongs to you, but it can only belong to you if you participate and take charge

Kofi Annan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kofi Annan
Age: 80 †
Born: 1938
Born: April 8
Died: 2018
Died: August 18
Diplomat
Economist
Politician
Coomassie
Kofi Atta Annan
Annan
Kofi A. Annan
Take
Participate
Charge
Belongs
Belong
Future

More quotes by Kofi Annan

Image
I think what gives me hope is I have the sense that the people of Kenya have turned the page. They are keen to get a new political dispensation. They are keen to fight corruption and impunity, and in that sense they are leaving the political elite behind.
Kofi Annan
Image
Invite politicians to dinner and let them tell the world how delicious it is. . . . They will proudly go around and say, 'I ate crickets, I ate locusts, and they were delicious.'
Kofi Annan
Image
Nelson Mandela stands as an inspiration to us all
Kofi Annan
Image
The United Nations is proud to have the Adopt-A-Minefield Campaign as a partner.
Kofi Annan
Image
If you are neutral in a situation where one side is patently being mistreated, the conclusion is that you're siding with this wrong.
Kofi Annan
Image
The young and dynamic and idealistic people in the square do not have the chance to organise themselves politically, to be able to follow through their dreams in six months time, to play an effective role in the future.
Kofi Annan
Image
As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world.
Kofi Annan
Image
Over time you get to understand the nature of man and the environments you are dealing with, and you can't always allow emotions and temper to flare up because you're displeased with something, or you want to change it.
Kofi Annan
Image
We tend to look at countries in terms of failed states and functioning states, which is rather simplistic.
Kofi Annan
Image
...there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.
Kofi Annan
Image
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, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories.
Kofi Annan
Image
There is a certain tendency on the part of some Americans to treat the UN as a multilateralism à la carte where you pick and choose where it suits you and when it doesn't suit you, you pull back.
Kofi Annan
Image
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
Image
Most people forget that even in Iraq, by the time the air and no-fly zone was established, the air defence system had been removed through the first Gulf war. All of them had been neutralised.
Kofi Annan
Image
When the US withdrew their troops from Somalia, I recall making a comment that [in] the way the peacekeepers had been withdrawn from Somalia, the impression had been given that the easiest way to unravel a peacekeeping operation is to kill a few soldiers.
Kofi Annan
Image
Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is.
Kofi Annan
Image
Ameen Rihani, one of the earliest Arab Americans, devoted his life to bringing the East and the West together. We are not of the East or the West, he wrote. No boundaries exist in our breast: We are free.
Kofi Annan
Image
Some have suggested that ideally there must be some international body that would treat areas like the Arctic as a global commerce, a bit like the way we treat the sea. It doesn't belong to any particular country, but to all of us, but I'm not sure some of the powerful are ready for that sort of solution.
Kofi Annan
Image
I think that peacekeeping can do quite a lot, if they are given the right mandate with the commensurate resources to get the job done.
Kofi Annan
Image
literacy is at the heart of sustainable development
Kofi Annan