Kofi Annan Quotes

No system can guard against turmoil in the case of a tie. And this is a tie.

This system isn't working.

Turmoil stimulates.

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

As we move toward a new Middle East, over the years and, I think, over the decades to come, we will make a lot of people very nervous.

Change will always be violent.

Let us look the danger fairly in the face. Secession is neither more nor less than revolution.

Every single change is fought by those who would be affected by it.

The more revolutions occur, the less things change.

Revolutions breeds its own excesses.

One man’s democratization is another man’s destabilization.

There comes not seldom a crisis in the life of men, of nations, and of worlds, when the old forms seem ready to decay, and the old rules of action have lost their binding force. The evils of existing systems obscure the blessings that attend them; and, where reform is needed, the cry is raised for subversion

One problem can stop a whole agreement.

Iraq is a terrible place. Some fool American is going to come out here and try to redesign it

Progress is never accepted by everybody.

The so called “Arab Spring” … is really a situation which is creating more threats so far than positive incentives.

I am an enemy to revolutions. I abhor, both from temper and from the clearest judgment I am able to form, all violent convulsions in the affairs of men.

Good intentions never change anything. They only become a deeper and deeper rut.

Individuals fighting or rebelling against the status quo, the establishment, is good for drama.

Folks will always, always, always go back to the comfortable status quo, with its silent voices and lack of conflict, if you give them the chance.

Every day is different. There's always, as we call it in the NBA, a 'drama,' a team's drama, there's always something.

...a disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.

The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly.

For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be.

I think that ISIS is a problem and it's really a symptom of a much greater problem.