UN Speakers’ Favorite Quotes: Ancient Wisdom to Talking Heads

CAMEROON – World leaders use the U.N. General Assembly to deliver policy arguments, warnings and appeals. But amid the formal speeches, many also turn to memorable words from poets, philosophers, musicians, writers and traditional sayings.

This week’s addresses drew on everything from national proverbs and ancient writings to moral leaders and popular culture — including a reference to Talking Heads, the 1980s new wave band, rather than television commentators.

Here are some of the notable quotations cited during the gathering:

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“Laws are made to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.” — Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, quoting the ancient Babylonian king Hammurabi

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“The coral reef where different species of fish congregate to feed and seek shelter.” — Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, explaining a traditional Marshallese proverb

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“We’re on a road to nowhere.” — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, citing David Byrne of Talking Heads

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“We are the land, its custodians and its inhabitants. To us it belongs, for we are its people and its home. Today belongs to the people, and the glorious yesterday belongs to them, as well. To them belong the future, history and time itself.” — a Yemeni poet, quoted by Abdullah Abdulkader al Alimi-Bawzer, vice president of Yemen’s internationally recognized governing council, with the words translated by U.N. interpreters

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“The breach of one rule inevitably leads to the breach of other rules.” — Finnish President Alexander Stubb, quoting Mahatma Gandhi

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“Members of the United Nations General Assembly, your very name implies commitment, through your peace initiatives and humanitarian policies, to igniting the fires of conscience, empathy, unity and equity.” — Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, quoting the country’s poet laureate, Esther Phillips

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“When we gather together in the moonlit village ground, it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.” — Comoros President Azali Assoumani, citing author Chinua Achebe

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“When there is anguish in Port-au-Prince, it’s still Africa crying. We’re putting out fires in faraway places when our neighbors are just burning…. I refuse to believe that we good people will forever turn our hearts and our eyes away. Haiti, I’m sorry.” — President Godwin Friday of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, quoting calypso singer David Rudder

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“Knowledge is like the ocean’s waves: It comes in many forms and sizes, yet no wave overpowers another, and all ultimately reach the same shore.” — one of a couple of Palauan sayings translated and quoted by Palau President Surangel Whipps

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“How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but we can start right now to gradually change the world!” — Anne Frank, referred to by Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who also quoted Mahatma Gandhi, Nuremberg war crimes trial prosecutor Robert H. Jackson and an inscription at a cemetery for American World War II soldiers in the Netherlands