Kofi Annan Quotes

All countries, big or small, strong or weak, are equal members of the United Nations.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

This means that the search for a formula of European cooperation in connection with the League of Nations, far from weakening the authority of this latter must and can only tend to strengthen it, for it is closely connected with its aims.

The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.

The UN's unique legitimacy flows from a universal perception that it pursues a larger purpose than the interests of one country or a small group of countries.

Just think of what Woodrow Wilson stood for: he stood for world government. He wanted an early United Nations, League of Nations. But it was the conservatives, Republicans, that stood up against him.

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

Multilateralism is the democracy of international society.

World government is a premature concept at this stage. We are moving more and more into supernational arrangements, but it is too early still.

The time has passed when nations should be allowed to do as they individually wish with regard to global matters, each striving solely in its own interests, with the more powerful now able to destroy all humanity and more. For the common good, we need to frame and abide by a higher system of law and justice, designed with less national, more godlike, perspectives for the preservation and welfare of the biosphere as a whole.

Everything will be all right ... when people stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.

The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations.

We recognize and accept our own deep involvement in the destiny of men everywhere. We are accordingly pledged to honor, and to strive to fortify, the authority of the United Nations. For in that body rests the best hope of our age for the assertion of that law by which all nations may live in dignity.

War might be instantly banished from Europe, would its nations regard themselves as one great society, and by mutual consent, erect a court for the trial and decisions of their respective disputes.

United Nations Day marks the birthday of our founding Charter - the landmark document that embodies the hopes, dreams and aspirations of 'we the peoples.'

The world order which we seek is the co-operation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

As long as the problem of world reconstruction remains the center of interest for all nations, blocs having similar attitudes will form and operate even within the League itself.

The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world.

The liberal vision of America is that it should be less arrogant, less unilateral, more internationalist. In Obama's view, America would subsume itself under a fuzzy internationalism in which the international community, which I think is a fiction, governs itself through the U.N.

We can have a World War, I see absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have a World Party.

As New Zealanders, we've been in on the United Nations from the very beginning, played a role in the drafting of the charter - it means a lot to us that those processes are followed.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

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