A Quote by Barack Obama

The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

Barack Obama

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About Alone Also Cannot Carry Choice Condemnation Diplomacy Discussion Door Down Engagement Forward Human Human Rights Indignation Know Lacks Move Must New Only Open Open Door Outreach Painstaking Path Promotion Purity Quo Regime Regimes Rights Sanctions Satisfying Status Status Quo Times Unless Without

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Barack Obama
American - President
Born: August 4, 1961

We need a more complex understanding of writers working under authoritarian or repressive regimes. Something to replace this simpleminded, Cold War-ish equation in which the dissident in exile is seen as a bold figure, and those who choose to work with restrictions on their freedom are considered patsies for repressive governments. Let's not forget that most writers in history have lived under nondemocratic regimes: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Goethe didn't actually enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech.

Pankaj Mishra

I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.

Ayn Rand

I did not suggest that Iran is a democracy; just the opposite. I talked about it being a repressive theocracy. What I think is indisputable is that even within this repressive regime, the political leaders there - including the Supreme Leader - are sensitive to the concerns of the population within bounds.

Barack Obama

Humanitarian assistance and exchanges are still allowed, even under the sanctions regime on North Korea. Therefore, in parallel with sanctions and pressure, we must also employ humanitarian assistance. The meeting of separated families is also a measure to ensure human rights.

Moon Jae-in

It's one thing to say you're feminist, but then what does that mean? Not selling arms to a regime that is the most repressive and probably one of the worst human rights violators, particularly towards women, like Saudi Arabia?

Jagmeet Singh

People talk about smart sanctions and crippling sanctions. I've never seen smart sanctions, and crippling sanctions cripple everyone, including innocent civilians, and make the government more popular.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans.

Evo Morales

People talk about smart sanctions and crippling sanctions. Ive never seen smart sanctions, and crippling sanctions cripple everyone, including innocent civilians, and make the government more popular.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Those of us who decided to work for democracy in Burma made our choice in the conviction that the danger of standing up for basic human rights in a repressive society was preferable to the safety of a quiescent life in servitude

Aung San

Here is the infallible test. Imagine yourself in a situation where you are alone, wholly alone on earth, and you are offered one of the two, books or men. I often hear men prizing their solitude but that is only because there are still men somewhere on earth even though in the far distance. I knew nothing of books when I came forth from the womb of my mother, and I shall die without books, with another human hand in my own. I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me.

Martin Buber

The raids on Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the Adenauer Foundation, and other groups helping Egyptians move toward respect for democratic politics and human rights were of a piece with the practices of Hosni Mubarak - only bolder and more repressive.

Elliott Abrams

One cannot have a trade union or a democratic election without freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly. Without a democratic election, whereby people choose and remove their rulers, there is no method of securing human rights against the state. No democracy without human rights, no human rights without democracy, and no trade union rights without either. That is our belief; that is our creed.

George Meany

Seven out of 10 Americans know the country's headed in the wrong direction, that in a very real sense that this is a clear choice between change in the status quo and I've always been telling crowds, the other side says if you like your status quo you can keep it.

Mike Pence

Repressive regimes do not endure change willingly - and Venezuela is no exception.

Leopoldo Lopez

I don't think that stability and the status quo go together at all, not in a flat world where people are integrated, where women are assuming new roles, where young people want to be consulted and participate. I think the trick is to open up, move down the path of reform, do it in a way that is consistent with your own society's stability and culture, and just don't think you can do nothing.

Thomas Friedman

People who speak up for freedom in regimes that are repressive are often at threat.

Rex W. Tillerson

A Quote by Barack Obama

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