Conor Cruise O'Brien Quotes

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.

The United Nations has a lot of capacity on the ground.

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.

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

I worked at the United Nations.

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.

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.

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 United Nations remains our most important global actor. These days we are continuously reminded of the enormous responsibility of the Security Council to uphold international peace and stability.

We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.

We would have to invent the U.N. if we did not have it, which is not an original thought.

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

The League is dead; long live the United Nations.

Over the last decade the United Nations has repeatedly failed to meet the challenge, and cannot do any better today.

The United Nations is a failed institution in its current form.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed institution.

One thing the United Nation is good at is producing documents.

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

The President professes a faith in the United Nations but his actions and statements are not designed to give life or vitality to that organization.

It [the UN] has given uniquely valuable services in many places where violence threatened. It is the only real world forum where we have the opportunity for international presentation and rebuttal…. The United Nation deserves our continued firm support.

I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet.