Lakhdar Brahimi Quotes

The U. N. is like a company that can't market its products and whose board members put their own interests first.

The U.N. is one of many competitors in a marketplace of global problem solving.

The United Nations will be at the heart of our international activities. France will assume its full responsibilities at the Security Council by putting its status at the service of peace, respect for human rights and development.

From the beginning of my time as Secretary-General, I have sought to advance a practical, action-oriented vision of the U.N. as the voice of the voiceless and the defender of the defenceless.

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small.

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail, and to be seen to fail.

The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform.

Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed institution.

This organization [the United Nations] is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn't created to take you to heaven.

We must have a world organization for the purpose of deliberation, but not for the purpose of waging wars and imposing sanctions.

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail, and to be seen to fail. If there is something you are expected to do, but don't want to do, or even have done for you, you can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

I worked at the United Nations.

I really don't want to live in a world where the U.N. will not be relevant, will not be seen as the enterprise we turn to when we have a problem.

The U.N. was created for people.

The U.N. is capable of endless process and mindless psychobabble, but as far as getting the job done on the ground, I just don't see them doing it.

As I prepare for my second term as Secretary-General, I am thinking hard about how we can meet the expectations of the millions of people who see the U.N.'s blue flag as a banner of hope. We have to continue our life-saving work in peacekeeping, human rights, development and humanitarian relief.

We must never relent in our efforts to resolve conflicts through diplomacy and through all of the instruments bestowed by the Charter of the United Nations.

I have concluded that the U.N. can do a few things well.

The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be.

I also believe that member states of the United Nations should live up their obligations to pay their dues.

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

And I hope America will realise, as the only superpower now, it really must use its power in a way that's going to build up the world, and to support the United Nations.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

I have always seen the United States as a force of good. And I have learned that there is the idealistic part about what we can do at the U.N. and there is a doable part. And I have learned what is more doable.