Richard Nixon Quotes

I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

In a world full of competing emergencies and disasters, it really helps if there is an international locomotive that can help us bring attention - help us bring resources.

During the time I was in office we have seen the beginning of the elimination of the fire season completely and are having fires all year round. I think we have seen the major problem of the destruction of land and property and lives that is a major problem because we don't have the resources for that many fires and we don't have the resources and the manpower to fight those fires throughout the year.

That was for instance the case in Mocambique a couple of years ago, during the flooding catastrophe. Instead of co-ordinating assistance properly, to much time and resources was spent on fighting about the same helicopters and local guides.

When millions of dollars and thousands of humanitarian workers poured into Indonesia, we quickly faced the challenge of coordinating our own bureaucracy with the multitudes of approaches and priorities the donor community wanted to pursue.

My own country, Slovakia, has been there for South Sudan and its people. We made South Sudan a priority country of our official development assistance and humanitarian aid.

Some decisions, like opening a fire hydrant to put out a fire, are easy to make. Other decisions, like deciding how to best distribute a drought-limited water supply among urban, rural and recreational uses, require careful deliberation.

The U.S. and Canada are two generous governments and we reach out and partner with anyone who believes in foreign aid.

The world is on fire, and I'm doing my best to help steer the firetruck.

We need to be able to demonstrate that what we do in today's world, in humanitarian aid, the enormous effort to minimize the tragic situations that we see all over the world, I think, without the U.N., people would suffer much more, and the situation would be much more terrible.

Whenever there is an international crisis - an earthquake, a flood, a war - Americans provide more assistance than the people of any other nation.

State governments should not have to compete in bidding contests against each other in order to get the necessary supplies to protect and help their citizens.

For cyclone-proof energy infrastructure, we would definitely explore all possibilities, including international support.

The ability to reach a catastrophic forest fire quickly can not only save millions in fire suppression costs, it can save structures and, most importantly, lives.

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority.

While other countries may espouse the liberal utopian dream of a global community, it's usually only to get the richer countries to pay more money for the world's problems.

The way we need to view aid is as a fulfillment of rights, and Mexico, as other countries around the world, have agreed and signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the covenants of Human Rights and that includes the right to food, the right to water, the right to housing and the right to education.

Wars aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.

International solidarity is not an act of charity: It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible.

You saw the traumas that people lived through, and wondered what it will take to move us as a human community, as humanity, to help in these dangerous situations.

If my house is on fire, I don't need the fire chief telling me I should not have built the house out of wood. I need somebody to put the fire out.

Here's my philosophy in life: If there's a fire, you put it out. If there's a flood, you fill sandbags and you build a dike. You roll up your sleeves and you get to work.

If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.

After the tsunami in Japan, we were open for business. In fact, I flew there 10 days after the tsunami to show our support for the Japanese people.