Ban Ki-moon Quotes

No generation has had the opportunity, as we now have, to build a global economy that leaves no-one behind. It is a wonderful opportunity, but also a profound responsibility.

People don't need to become more aware of poverty - they need to know how to end it.

Do we have the will to make poverty history?

Tackling deprivation around the world is a moral imperative and firmly in Britain's national interest.

The Global Poverty Project's mission is to stand up for the world's poorest people. We fight for the full funding of Millennium Development Goals and advocate meaningful change to government and corporate policies that block progress and entrench injustice.

I want to eradicate poverty. I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank.

Tom Clarke is dead. He has not our responsibilities. Nobody will ever know what he would do for the situation did not arise for him. But is has risen for us and we must face it with our intelligence and conscious of our responsibility.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

Ending extreme poverty is possible.

People in red states and blue states can agree that if we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, letting people work their way out of poverty without undermining community health, we have a moral obligation to do so.

Progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all.

It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less.

Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

A few years ago the idea that extreme poverty was harmful was on the fringes of the economic and political debate. But having made the case we are now seeing an emerging consensus among business leaders, economic leaders, political leaders and even faith leaders.

Taking bold climate action now has the potential to unleash the full power of business and at the same time lift millions of people out of poverty. We're the first generation to recognize this and the last generation that will have this opportunity.

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes.

We all have the chance to create a world where extreme poverty is the exception rather than the rule.

This is the first generation in all of recorded history that can do something about the scourge of poverty. We have the means to do it. We can banish hunger from the face of the earth.

Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound, or smell of it

In a world of plenty, continued suffering is a terrible stain on our conscience. It is inexcusable that we not strive, with every resource at our disposal, to eliminate suffering.

We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place.

If we neglect or abandon those who are suffering in poverty ... not only are we depriving ourselves of potential opportunities for markets and economic growth, but ultimately that despair may turn to violence that turns on us.

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

You can't tackle climate change until you tackle poverty.

I want to work for the poor in my country.