Knowledge is power. Information is liberating.
Interpretation
Knowledge and information empower individuals and facilitate freedom.
This quote emphasizes the critical role that knowledge and information play in the pursuit of freedom and empowerment. Kofi Annan suggests that possessing knowledge equips individuals not just with the power to make informed decisions, but also the ability to liberate themselves from ignorance and oppression, highlighting the transformative potential that understanding and awareness hold in every aspect of life.
In practice
During a speech about education, a speaker might use this quote to emphasize the importance of learning.
If you have a problem and you can't find a solution, you meet again tomorrow and you keep talking until you find a solution. You can disagree with behavior or a particular position, but you do not resort to calling an opponent worthless.
Let us remember the large numbers of citizens who, day in and day out, through acts of volunteerism large and small, bring hope to so many of the world's disadvantaged. Let us ensure that this wonderful resource, available in abundance to every nation, is recognized and supported as it works towards a more prosperous and peaceful world.
We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.
The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity - between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?
People of different religions and cultures live side by side in almost every part of the world, and most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are, without hating what β and who β we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.
Democracy is, in essence, a form of non-violent conflict management. If war is the worst enemy of development, healthy and balanced development is the best form of conflict prevention.
It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.
Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation.
Paper has more patience than people.
There are two good rules which ought to be written on every heart - never to believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know it to be true; never to tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening.
I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.
He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
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