Education is the great equalizer of our time. It gives hope to the hopeless and creates chances for those without.

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

...there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.

It is not in the United Nations that the Millennium Development Goals will be achieved. They have to be achieved in each of its Member States, by the joint efforts of their governments and people.

Children are our future, and their mothers are its guardians.

The death toll from small arms dwarfs that of all other weapons systems — and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as 'weapons of mass destruction'.

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.