The question now is how best to help the Iraqi people build a democratic and free Iraqi society that ensures respect for the rights of all Iraqis.

In a society where the rights and potential of women are constrained, no man can be truly free. He may have power, but he will not have freedom.

I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.

If we took away barriers to women's leadership, we would solve the climate change problem a lot faster

Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation.

Feel empowered. And if you start to do it, if you start to feel your voice heard, you will never go back.

Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts.

To make progress we have to build a multi-stakeholder process, harnessing the appropriate energies.

Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century.

The whole human rights structure is based on the accountability of governments.

An endless war against terrorism can tend to inflate the terrorists, because being at war is attractive to some angry, unemployed, disaffected youth.

Fear is a numbing thing when there is no recourse to hope or escape...

Most people will be a great success if they focus on doing what is important and not what is urgent or pleasant.

I am the living dead girl because I am too weak to die. I hate those crying dough women on TV because they are just like me, weak and broken and clinging to the hands that hold us under.

Anything other than death is a minor injury.

What you do matters — but not much. What you are matters tremendously.

The snow is falling on the deserted field of my life, and my hopes, which roam far, are afraid of becoming frozen or lost.

People mistakenly believe that if you do nothing but train you can only get better. You've got to work hard, but the harder you work the harder you must rest and relax.

When struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice.

Each superfluous line, each wrongly placed line, any color placed without veneration or care, can spoil everything, that is, the spiritual.

Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.