Top 1200 North Korean Quotes & Sayings

While our nation's attention is rightly focused on the Middle East, the North Korean threat has grown exponentially, while there seems to be a falling asleep, so to speak, at the switch when it comes to North Korea.

In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China.

During the periods when South Korea played a more active role, the inter-Korean relationship was more peaceful, and there was less tension between the United States and North Korea. The last U.S. administration pursued a policy of strategic patience and did not make any effort to improve its relationship with North Korea. Also, the previous Korean government did not make any such efforts. The result is the reality you see today - North Korea continuing to advance its nuclear and missile program.

I am one of the lucky North Koreans who made it out of China. North Korean defectors in the country are terrified of trying to leave because they are often caught at the borders as they attempt to cross into Mongolia or Laos.

Even though some heartless North Korean, Korean-Chinese, and Chinese citizens have exploited vulnerable defectors for money, I witnessed many acts of kindness by the Chinese.

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

North Koreans are forced to work at state jobs in a moribund economy. Countless parents watch their children go to bed hungry. Many North Korean families feel they have no option but to try to escape.

North Korea. Not only does North Korean have nuclear weapons, but their leadership appears to not be rational.

The only way to resolve the North Korean problem is to change the regime.

Living in China, I found out that the bright new world was not for me, not for defectors. My life in North Korea had been OK; suddenly, in China, I had to feed myself and earn money. Worst of all, North Korean defectors are hunted by the government.

The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.

We must work to make the South-North Korea dialogue lead to talks between the United States and North Korea. Only then can we peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.

I have visited slums in Mumbai, I have visited slums in other countries, but nothing is like North Korea because North Korean starvation, it's a systematic starvation by a country that chose to starve us.

We must do all we can to help improve the deplorable human rights situation of the North Korean people.

In the spring of 2007, Israeli intelligence brought to Washington proof that the Assad regime in Syria was building a nuclear reactor along the Euphrates - with North Korean help. This reactor was a copy of the Yongbyon reactor the North Koreans had built, and was part of a Syrian nuclear weapons program.

And also, we are providing, you know, a nuclear power plant in the north, two light water systems, so some 4 or 5 billion dollars we are providing to meet with North Korean requests on the condition North Korea will not produce a nuclear weapon.

When I do an Asian character or an Asian voice I'm doing one because that's my heritage and my family and where I come from. My family is of Korean descent and specifically North Korean descent. So it makes sense for me to talk about that issue because it's the only weapon I have to somehow avenge my family and my history.

If you're in the rural South, you don't get Korean TV, unless you can find a Korean grocery guy who has been taping Korean programs and then offering them.

The United States is deeply concerned about the vulnerability of the North Korean people to a coronavirus outbreak.

I myself hate the communist North Korean system. That doesn't mean I should let the people in the North suffer under an oppressive regime.

North Korea is no threat at all. I have already spoken about it during countless televised interviews. I visited North Korea and mingled with its people. There, nobody wants war. The North Korean people paid a terrible price for their independence. Its civilians were murdered mercilessly in tunnels by Western forces; its women were brutally raped, entire villages and towns leveled to the ground, or burned to ashes. All this is never discussed in the West, but is remembered in North Korea.

My life is not only mine. I am telling the story of all North Korean people; it is my responsibility to tell it.

The North Korean Communists are implacably pursuing their military buildup in defiance of the international trend toward rapprochement and of the stark reality of the Korean situation, as well as of the long-cherished aspiration of the 50 million Koreans. The North Koreans have already constructed a number of underground invasion tunnels across the Demilitarized Zone.

North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.

In China, it was hard living as a young girl without my family. I had no idea what life was going to be like as a North Korean refugee. But I soon learned it's not only extremely difficult, it's also very dangerous, since North Korean refugees are considered in China as illegal migrants.

Beijing cannot sit by and let her North Korean ally be bombed, nor can it allow U.S. and South Korean forces to defeat the North, bring down the regime, and unite the peninsula, with U.S. and South Korean soldiers sitting on the Yalu, as they did in 1950 before Mao ordered his Chinese army into Korea.

At the beginning of this year also, I called upon the North Korean side to open dialog between the responsible authorities of the South and the North at any place, at any time, and at any level, in order to prevent a recurrence of war and to cooperate to speed up the peaceful unification of our fatherland. However, no sincere response has yet been made by North Korea.

I feel very sorry for the one or two North Korean defectors who were caught by Chinese police while entering South Korean or foreign embassies in Beijing, but their arrest drew the whole attention of the world.

We must embrace the North Korean people as part of the Korean nation, and to do that, whether we like it or not, we must recognize Kim Jong-un as their ruler and as our dialogue partner.

There is no way to know for certain what accounts for North Korean decisionmaking, given how closed a country it is.

So if North Korea continues present isolation, then with such economic difficulties the North Korean government must meet a very serious situation in the future.

I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."

I love Korean rice and Korean food in general. Korean barbecues are cool - there's a table with a hole in it with fire coming through, and we throw meat on it.

Even after arriving in South Korea, it's dangerous. As a North Korean defector, I need to be careful from the spies to protect my relatives inside North Korea.

When I was growing up, we were taught in school that North Koreans, and especially the North Korean leadership, were all devils.

Korean, yes, I am now fluent in Korean. I was not always. When I got to Korea, I was constantly put on TV shows not knowing what was going on. So that forced me to learn Korean so I could stop looking like an idiot.

After listening to the radio, I learned what the North Korean government had been telling us about the war was not true. This myth allowed the North to hold the South responsible for the war.

A South Korean teenager, 18-year-old male, is about five inches taller than his North Korean counterpart. And there are many soldiers who are only about 4'6". The height requirement is supposed to be 4'9". That's the size of my 12-year-old son.

Besides the conventional military threats, North Korean cyber capabilities are growing.

The message that we must send to North Korea is twofold: If the North Korean regime believes that it can defend and protect itself through nuclear and missile programs, that is a misjudgment. But if North Korea gives up its nuclear program, we will help it secure and develop itself. We must consistently send these two messages.

I believe President Trump is more reasonable than he is generally perceived. President Trump uses strong rhetoric toward North Korea, but during the election campaign, he also said he could talk over a burger with Kim Jong-un. I am for that kind of pragmatic approach to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.

The North Korean regime really can control people. I think they are the best dictator in the whole planet.

We're so willing to dehumanize entire populations in order for us to conveniently go along with our lives. We know exactly one North Korean, for example. The rest of them, we don't know - but it makes it very easy to bomb North Korea if we pretend they're all one person. Literature makes it harder to dehumanize people in this way.

After years of failure, I do think that President Trump has shown a lot of wisdom in reaching out his hand to the North Korean leader and to suggest to them that there might be a different future for the North Korean people.

I watched a lot of documentaries about North Korean defectors. I also practiced speaking in a North Korean accent with a teacher, and studied a lot.

My parents fled from North Korea during the Korean War because they despised the North Korean Communist regime. They fled to seek freedom and came to South Korea.

It is natural for us to pay attention to North Korea and human rights issues of North Korean defectors but I wish people would not try to create stars. The reality is different from Hollywood movies.

The North Korean government are out to get me.

If Sony's not going to show 'The Interview,' that's it. No more North Korean movies for me.

The solution to North Korea is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. China could influence the North; it supplies 80 to 90 percent of North Korea's energy. The United States have to put pressure on China in order for China to pressure North Korea.

My goal is to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem and solidify peace during my term.

I escaped a North Korean prison camp

South Korea was able to build its national security thanks to the U.S., and the two nations will work together on the North Korean nuclear issue. However, I believe we need to be able to take the lead on matters in the Korean Peninsula as the country directly involved.

Although North Korea's position differs (from Tokyo's), Japan's basic stance remains unchanged ? to seek sincere responses from the North Korean side to resolve the abduction and nuclear issues.

They said these North Korean missiles had enough range to hit Seattle, but residents in Seattle were not worried. Today Bill Gates said Microsoft has enough missiles to destroy North Korea ten times over.

I don't think the North Korean leadership is interested in a genuine deal to end their WMD programs or their stranglehold on the North Korean people.

South Koreans often don't think of North Korean defectors as Korean. While we have been granted citizenship, the locals don't consider us as South Korean citizens. We are often treated differently and viewed differently, even by people who care for us the most.

I wanted to show North Korean people that they have hope, and they can be free someday, like myself.

One of the things we need to do with North Korea, which is a rogue nation, is to get the international community in support of further sanctions, of keeping pressure on the North Korean regime.

Regarding the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, we reaffirm that we are staunchly committed to realizing the denuclearization of the peninsula and upholding the international nuclear nonproliferation system. Both sides will continue to strictly enact all UN Security Council resolutions. And at the same time, we are committed to continuing to solve the North Korean nuclear issue through dialogue and talks.