As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: "With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas," or, They went on playing politics until their world collapsed around them.
U ThantUnderstanding, love and tolerance are the highest forms of interest on out small and interdependent planet.
U ThantWorld federalists hold before us the vision of a unified mankind living in peace under a just world order... The heart of their program-a world under law- is realistic and attainable.
U ThantIn modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished... There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind.
U ThantThe concept of peaceful coexistence has been criticized by many who do not see the need to make the world safe for diversity. I wonder if they have ever paused to ask themselves the question: What is the alternative to coexistence?
U ThantThe law of love and compassion for all living creatures is again a doctrine to which we are all too ready to pay slip service. However, if it is to become a reality, it requires a process of education, a veritable mental renaissance. Once it has become a reality, national as well as international problems will fall into perspectives and become easier to solve. Wars and conflicts, too, will then become a thing of the past, because wars begin in the minds of men, and in those minds love and compassion would have built the defenses of peace.
U Thant