Thabo Mbeki Quotes

What we need to recognize, less than 1 percent of the people organized around issues that are already supported by conservatives and liberals, and there are a lot of them that aren't publicized, back home, can overcome corporate forces in Washington.

We need less theoretical debate and more practical application and acknowledgment of what Europe can and does do so that it is brought home to people in a relevant way.

What we have got to do - especially with younger people, especially with people not heavily involved in the political process - is to make sure that every morning, afternoon, and evening, they are seeing the presentation of issues that are relevant to their lives.

Democracy doesn't work unless people are well informed, and I don't know that we are. People just don't have the time. Most people's daily lives are just about surviving. Most people don't have time to really study [crucial] issues.

The world censures those who take up arms to defend their causes and calls on them to use nonviolent means in voicing their grievances. But when a people chooses the nonviolent path, it is all too often the case that hardly anyone pays attention. It is tragic that people have to suffer and die and the television cameras have to deliver the pictures to people's homes every day before the world at large admits there is a problem.

The national sport of England is obstacle-racing. People fill their rooms with useless and cumbersome furniture, and spend the rest of their lives in trying to dodge it.

The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information.

Hugh [Evans] called us. And obviously this has been on our radar for all the years it's been going on. And each year obviously reaches more and more people, and it's high profile. Hugh reached out to our manager just down the street. And we said we're here [ on GLOBAL CITIZEN in the Central Park] to help and do whatever we can.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

Maybe, instead of paying so much in tax, the very rich could be incentivised to help their local community and young people who do not have a home.

In an era of globalisation, AIESEC's programmes have helped young people around the world to develop a broader understanding of cultural socio-economic and business management issues.

The drys seemingly are afraid of the truth. Why not take inventory and ascertain the true conditions. Let us not leave it to the charge of an antiprohibition organization, or to any other private association, let us have an official survey and let the American people know what is going on. A complete and honest and impartial survey would reveal incredible conditions.

In terms of the stars, the only ones I cast were Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. I was in Los Angeles working and a lot of this took place on the telephone. I'd met Maggie [Smith] once and I'd come back-stage, which I'm usually loathe to do because as an actor you don't want people coming back because you want to get home [laughs].

If you consider that there are a million people forced out of their homes by Katrina, multiply that by 150, and then stick those people in countries who, as inconceivable as it seems, are less prepared than we were to deal with the whole thing.

The most effective means of preventing tyranny is to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts.

Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

I think the American people were saying we do not want to have further investigation. We want to close this off. They clearly made a separation between the personal conduct .. They want Congress to wrap it up, get it behind them, so we can get on to the issues that the president has been working with Congress.

Mostly I'm just writing books for the public, and so I try to describe for the public what the choices are, what they might have to expect in the future and so by warning people ahead of time maybe you have an effect.

I'm one of those people who knows how lucky she is. And every day, I look around the house, and I count my blessings. They're all there under that roof.

If you look at figures, we have a good supply of doctors in Switzerland. They always say that in the future we shall have a lack of home doctors, family doctors. I'm not sure of that, but we have a problem of formation. Every year there [are] about 1,000 students beginning medical studies, and at the end of the formation there are only 600 young people getting the diploma. It means that about 40 percent of the students fail during the studies, although there is a selection at the beginning. Forty percent is too much as failure, so probably there is a problem in the formation, education.

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.

Learn from the people. Plan with the people. Begin with what they have. Build on what they know.

Unless they can immediately demonstrate a credible fear of persecution, why shouldn't these people be returned at once to the country from which they embarked - whether it be their home country or a stopover point - at the expense of the airline that brought them? All appeals would then be made from the country to which they have been returned.

You have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people's beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance.

I must absorb everything while I'm still singing and step onto the stages of my many homes, and look out at the familiar surroundings, at the people who have come to hear me, to hear music.