“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race. We all share the same basic values.”
As quoted in Simply Living: The Spirit of the Indigenous People (1999) edited by Shirley A. Jones
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Kofi Annan 60
7th Secretary-General of the United Nations 1938–2018Related quotes
Official Trailer
Hawking (2013)
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)
Source: The Enchantress of Florence
“All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays.”
quoted in [Dawkins, Richard, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006, Bantam Press, ISBN 0-618-68000-4, "The Roots of Religion", pp. 167-168]
Max, Gao, ‘Minari’ Actress Youn Yuh-Jung Knows the Awards “Mean Nothing to Me”, Observer, 2021-02-15, 2021-06-08 https://observer.com/2021/02/youn-yuh-jung-interview-minari/,
Source: 2015, Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality (June 2015)
Context: I know that Americans of goodwill continue to hold a wide range of views on this issue. Opposition in some cases has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact; recognize different viewpoints; revere our deep commitment to religious freedom. But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple, often painfully, real change is possible. Shifts in hearts and minds is possible. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them. Because for all our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone. That’s always been our story. We are big and vast and diverse; a nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, different experiences and stories, but bound by our shared ideal that no matter who you are or what you look like, how you started off, or how and who you love, America is a place where you can write your own destiny.
1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)
2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)
“The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.”
Presidency (1977–1981), Farewell Address (1981)
Context: I have just been talking about forces of potential destruction that mankind has developed, and how we might control them. It is equally important that we remember the beneficial forces that we have evolved over the ages, and how to hold fast to them.
One of those constructive forces is enhancement of individual human freedoms through the strengthening of democracy, and the fight against deprivation, torture, terrorism and the persecution of people throughout the world. The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.
Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.
I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights — at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny.
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.
Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle — the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.