The interesting thing is, everybody focuses on the global warming as an environmental issue, as something outside our daily lives. But actually the impact of global warming is with us today. Communities are suffering. Communities in poor countries are the ones paying the price, they are not the ones who are polluting, and we need to help them adapt.

Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more and more closely interconnected.

We had a rule in the school that when you're punished, you carry out the punishment and then complain, which I felt was absolutely unfair: if I'd done it, what was the point of complaining?

Extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.

We were all children once. And we all share the desire for the well-being of our children, which has always been and will continue to be the most universally cherished aspiration of humankind.

If the United Nations is not as united as it should be, that is because it is a reflection of the world we live in.

People of different religions and cultures live side by side in almost every part of the world, and most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are, without hating what – and who – we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.