quotations about the United Nations
If all the diplomats were kicked out, the UN could be turned into the finest bordello in the world and do just as much, if not more, for international harmony.
F. PAUL WILSON
The Tomb
I hope the United Nations will ever remain the supreme forum of peace and justice, the authentic seat of freedom.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
address to the U.N. General Assembly, October 1979
I am convinced that the United Nations provides the best road to the future for those who have confidence in our capacity to shape our own fate on this planet.
KURT WALDHEIM
The Challenge of Peace
The United Nations is not failing. We are collectively failing its Charter and ideals through the decisions we make or fail to make. When we are ready, and collectively decide to fulfill the ideals of the UN, we will see the conventions, reports and structures as invaluable tools for getting there.
JOSÉ RAMOS-HORTA
"Reviving the Spirit of the UN Charter", Huffington Post, April 23, 2017
The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure--but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
speech in New York City, November 17, 1965
The purpose of the United Nations is to separate the United States from its money.
RUSH LIMBAUCH
"Foreign Aid and the Excrement List", February 4, 2015
As a result of the Holocaust, the United Nations pledged that nothing like that "sin against humanity" would be allowed to happen again.... this pledge has not been honored. We've had and continue to have Holocaust incidents by Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, and in Africa, the Mideast and other countries where millions of people have been tortured and/or murdered.
JOHN SHIELDS
"The United Nations is a good idea gone bad", Sonoran News, May 9, 2017
I have long felt the United Nations is an underperformer but has tremendous potential.... I mean, I see a day when there's a conflict where the United Nations, you get together, and you solve the conflict. You just don't see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that's going to start happening now. I can see it. And the United Nations will get together and solve conflicts. It won't be two countries, it will be the United Nations mediating or arbitrating with those countries.
DONALD TRUMP
"Trump to Security Council Members: United Nations 'Is An Underperformer,' But It Will Start Living Up To Its Potential Now", Real Clear Politics, April 24, 2017
The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
message to a joint session of Congress, "Truman Doctrine", March 12, 1947
The Trump administration would be smart to listen to diplomats who have served in the UN and have seen up close and personal how instrumental the global body can be in meeting America's foreign policy objectives.
DANIEL R. DEPETRIS
"Trump's plan to defund the UN would be a great way to draw America's military into many more global conflicts", Quartz, May 2, 2017
This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn't created to take you to heaven.
HENRY CABOT LODGE
New York Times, January 28, 1954
More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.
KOFI ANNAN
"Message for the New Millennium", December 31, 1999
The United Nations is like a spade; it is not self-operating. It is what we make of it, for purposes that we can find in common with our neighbors in the world.
ADLAI STEVENSON
United Nations: Guardian of Peace
The United Nations rose from the ashes of destruction, and created a magnificent vision for all of humankind: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and protect universal human rights.
JOSÉ RAMOS-HORTA
"Reviving the Spirit of the UN Charter", Huffington Post, April 23, 2017
Objective processes are making our complex and diverse world increasingly interrelated and interdependent. And it increasingly needs a mechanism which is capable of discussing its common problems in a responsible fashion and at a representative level and being a place for the mutual search for a balance of differing, contradictory, yet real, interests of the contemporary community of states and nations. The United Nations Organization is called upon to be such a mechanism by its underlying idea and its origin. We are confident that it is capable of fulfilling that role.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
Press Release No. 119 of the Mission to the United Nations of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, September 17, 1987
We prefer world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war in the age of mass extermination.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
The Uncommon Wisdom of JFK: A Portrait in His Own Words
The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations--great or small--to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century.
ADLAI STEVENSON
attributed, The Stevenson Wit and Wisdom
In today's world, commitments tend to fade, and lofty promises vanish bit by bit, as we defer and compromise, breeding new injustices that snowball into greater obstacles for future generations. The gap between the hopes reflected in the UN conventions, reports and structures, and the reality on the ground, where power prevails over humanity and violence begets violence, remains as wide as ever.
JOSÉ RAMOS-HORTA
"Reviving the Spirit of the UN Charter", Huffington Post, April 23, 2017
The United Nations is primarily a political organization, irrespective of the areas of work it is involved in. Everything at the United Nations depends on the political will of Member States. To be more accurate, it is the political will of some of the Member States, namely, those that have the most influence, due to their advanced stage of economic development and the high level of their assessed contribution to the budget of the United Nations. The successes of the United Nations, which should not be downplayed, have occurred when the national priorities of the most influential Member States coincided with international priorities.
KAMIL IDRIS & MICHAEL BARTOLO
A Better United Nations for the New Millennium
The United Nations is failing abysmally, and dangerously, in its mission. Founded in 1945 as a vehicle to avert war and promote human dignity and freedom, the U.N. has instead become a self-serving and ever-expanding haven of privilege for the world's worst regimes, rife with bigotry, fraud, abuse, and corruption, both financial and moral.
CLAUDIA ROSETT
books summary for "What to Do About the U.N.", Encounter Books