Future generations will judge us _x000D_ not by what we say, but what we do.
Ellen Johnson SirleafRead
My calling was first of all to ensure there was peace in the country, because we could easily have gone back to war. In the midst of the country, there were still warlords; there were many child soldiers who had never gone to school - they were part of the social setting - compromises had to be made.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of peace and the complexities involved in achieving it in a society affected by war.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf reflects on her duty to foster peace in a nation on the brink of war, highlighting the challenges posed by existing warlords and uneducated child soldiers. She acknowledges the need for compromises to establish a stable and peaceful society amidst a backdrop of conflict.
In practice
During a peace conference, I shared a powerful quote by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to emphasize the importance of compromise in rebuilding nations after conflict.
Future generations will judge us _x000D_ not by what we say, but what we do.
In terms of being able to renew my nation, to be able to be able to bring back a devastated country, to restore hope to our people, to lift women and to give them a new horizon, a new ambition and new dreams, in respect of all of that, I think we've accomplished it, and I feel very good about that.
The people of Liberia know what it means to be deprived of clean water, but we also know what it means to see our children to begin to smile again with a restoration of hope and faith in the future.
I would like to make sure, first of all, that our women in the informal sector - I mean, these are the farmers and the traders; many of them are not educated, many of them lacking literacy - be able to give them better working conditions. And we've done a lot to be able to achieve that.
I work hard, I work late, I have nothing on my conscience. When I go to bed, I sleep.
As more men become more educated and women get educated, the value system has to be more enhanced and the respect for human dignity and human life is made better.
We must have research for peace ... It would embrace the outstanding problems of morality. The time has come for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism ... Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to the human race.
I enter negotiations with Chairman Arafat, the leader of the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, with the purpose to have coexistence between our two entities, Israel as a Jewish state and Palestinian state, entity, next to us, living in peace.
A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.
The powerful have invoked God at their side in this war, so that we will accept their power and our weakness as something that has been established by divine plan. But there is no god behind this war other than the god of money, nor any right other than the desire for death and destruction... Today there is a “NO” which shall weaken the powerful and strengthen the weak: the “NO” to war.
The cure is care. Caring for others is the practice of peace. Caring becomes as important as curing. Caring produces the cure, not the reverse. Caring about nuclear war and its victims is the beginning of a cure for our obsession with war. Peace does not comes through strength. Quite the opposite: Strength comes through peace. The practices of peace strengthen us for every vicissitude. . . . The task is immense!
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.