Invite politicians to dinner and let them tell the world how delicious it is. . . . They will proudly go around and say, 'I ate crickets, I ate locusts, and they were delicious.'

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.

I've been around enough to realise that there are two things that once people have them, they don't want to give up, and it's extremely difficult to convince them to give up: one is privileges, and the other is subsidies.

Ameen Rihani, one of the earliest Arab Americans, devoted his life to bringing the East and the West together. We are not of the East or the West, he wrote. No boundaries exist in our breast: We are free.

Let us work in partnerships between rich and poor to improve the opportunities of all human beings to build better lives.

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace

As one of my predecessors said, our objective is not to take people to heaven, but to prevent humanity from going to hell.