“Planet Earth is our shared island, let us join forces to protect it”

The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels. We need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.

One of my earliest memories is walking up a muddy road into the mountains. It was raining. Behind me, my village was burning. When there was school, it was under a tree. Then the United Nations came. They fed me, my family, my community.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment have been a top priority for me from day one as Secretary-General. And I am committed to making sure that the U.N. leads by example.

It has been said that knowledge is power. We need to strengthen education systems so that young people can benefit from cultural diversity, and not be victimized by those who exploit differences.

Sustainable development and climate change are two sides of the same coin

I call on men and boys everywhere to join us. Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us – men and boys – refuse to tolerate it.

Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth – these are one and the same fight.

Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyones responsibility.

The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded.

The international community must offer short-term emergency measures to meet critical needs. But it must also make longer-term investments to promote food production and agricultural development, enhance food security and maintain and accelerate momentum towards the MDGs.

Every literate woman is a victory over poverty

I have been urging the leaders to listen to the aspirations and challenges of their own people, and engage in dialogue and take very bold measures. Normally, to their regret, these measures and bold reforms come too late, too little.

Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are – rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call global challenges, which require global solidarity.

Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course.

Our atmosphere can’t tell the difference between emissions from an Asian factory, the exhaust from a North American SUV, or deforestation in South America or Africa.

Between now and 2015, we must make sure that promises made become promises kept. The consequences of doing otherwise are profound: death, illness and despair, needless suffering, lost opportunities for millions upon millions of people.

Hawai’i is not truly the idyllic paradise of popular songs–islands of love and tranquility, where nothing bad ever happens.

Reached only by boat, seaplane and, with less surety, telephone-this is Fire Island.

To be on an island inhabited by artificial ghosts was the most unbearable of nightmares

Verse 11. (They presented unto Him gifts). The people of the east never approach the presence of kings and great personages, without a present in their hands.

The legacy of the embargo will be Cuba’s poverty and desperation. When the island comes out of it, they’ll be even more desperate than they are now about the things they think they’ve missed.

The custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands.

Judging is a lonely job in which a man is, as near as may be, an island entire.

The mother says to her daughter: The heart is an island. To reach it, You must cross salt water. This is what the daughter fears: That joy, like sorrow, Must be reached by shipwreck, Tossed on the flotsam of tears.