Mary Robinson Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Mary Robinson's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 108 quotes on this page collected since May 21, 1944! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • I have a sense that South Africa is my other country apart from my native country that I particularly love, [that I] want to see succeed, and I did really want my message to be listened to.

    Country   Want   Messages  
    Source: www.dailymaverick.co.za
  • The United Nations is actually a mid-20th century institution and much weaker than it was when it was originally created, because governments themselves are less capable of implementing the kind of promises or programs that they have put forward.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • The fight for human rights is about speaking truth to power.

    Rights  
    Source: www.dailymaverick.co.za
  • I'm a very wide reader. I read serious books and I read airplane, forgettable books. I never have fewer than four or five books beside my bed at night. I particularly enjoy reading about people who have gone through a personal growth.

    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • I can see the immense capacity of business to give leadership.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • When we see companies who are in complicit relationships with China, for example, making huge profits by providing China with the very software that enables the state to censor its own people, that is not acceptable. We need to engage with such companies to make their responsibilities clear.

    People  
    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • People I admire have two qualities: a kind of simplicity, and generosity of spirit. It seems to me that the more impressive people are in what they have done, the simpler they tend to be in how they talk to you, or in what they say or write.

    People  
    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • There are numerous issues that governments used to deal with that they now no longer deal with to the same extent: Prisons have been privatized in a number of countries; education and health are becoming privatized. Governments don't have the capacity to deliver - or not in isolation.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has helped Ireland to take its place as a European country with all the member states, including Britain. It has therefore helped the maturing of a good bilateral relationship with Britain, lifting part of the burden of history.

    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • We need more emphasis on linking jobs and economic progress with environmental issues, and not allowing environmentally damaging industries to be brought into the country simply to provide employment. It's not easy to balance.

    Country   Jobs   Issues  
    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts.

    Rights  
    Mary Robinson (2010). “A Voice for Human Rights”, p.9, University of Pennsylvania Press
  • A culture is not an abstract thing. It is a living, evolving process. The aim is to push beyond standard-setting and asserting human rights to make those standards a living reality for people everywhere.

    Rights   People  
  • We must understand the role of human rights as empowering of individuals and communities. By protecting these rights, we can help prevent the many conflicts based on poverty, discrimination and exclusion (social, economic and political) that continue to plague humanity and destroy decades of development efforts. The vicious circle of human rights violations that lead to conflicts-which in turn lead to more violations-must be broken. I believe we can break it only by ensuring respect for all human rights.

    Believe   Rights  
  • Symbols give us our identity, our self image, our way of explaining ourselves to ourselves and to others. Symbols in turn determine the kinds of stories we tell, and the stories we tell determine the kind of history we make and remake.

    Fergus Finlay, Mary Robinson (1990). “Mary Robinson: A President With a Purpose”, O'Brien Pr
  • Ireland is not in a good place at the moment. We have our own humiliation of losing our economic sovereignty, and we're now regaining it slowly and painfully.

    Source: www.dailymaverick.co.za
  • If you live in a global world and you want to champion liberty in it, then you have you got to sign up to that global world.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • As a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • We must encourage energy conservation and sustainable development. Young people are the ones who are most environmentally conscious in Ireland, so that to some extent they are educating their parents. They are tackling issues of waste disposal and so on. The schools help, because they put a lot of stress on environmental awareness.

    Issues  
    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • If the Chinese business community takes the Declaration of Human Rights, core labor standards, and environmental standards seriously, the government of China will take them far more seriously, too.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • In human rights theory it is very important that governments still have the primary responsibility for the standards and provision of such services even if they no longer deliver them. They must insist that the private sector delivers without discrimination. So governments still have responsibility, including the need to influence business.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • In general, I don't think that economic, social and cultural rights are primarily a matter of going to court. They are most useful today as commitments which can help ensure effective and equitable policy-making at every level.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • It's only after their death that people are truly appreciated. It's because they are true to values.

    People  
    Source: www.dailymaverick.co.za
  • All countries are particular and no models are perfect.

    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
  • Companies should increasingly see themselves as major corporate citizens with a wider responsibility to the community. Nothing less than their reputation - their image - is at stake.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • The first thing to recognize is how fortunate Ireland is to be an island off the west coast of Europe, and therefore helped by the prevailing winds to escape the effects of acid rain and other problems. We were also lucky not to have had the same kind of industrial revolution and industry as some other countries. Our problem now is to create employment, but to do it in ways that value our environment.

    Country   Rain   Islands  
    Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org
  • The governments are seen to be less effective than they used to be. The private sector is perceived as being so much more efficient, and so globalization implies a transfer of power to the private sector.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • The corporate sector per se is bottom-line oriented. It can be very corrupt and it is not very principled. That is why I don't think it is sufficient just to have voluntary codes of behavior. I am in favor of legislation which helps to ensure that there is an even playing field and rewards those who play by the rules.

    Source: www.egonzehnder.com
  • One of the richest countries in the world - the United States of America - is facing a real ethical dilemma in terms of providing equitable access to health care.

    Country   Real   America  
    Source: www.who.int
  • Christian fundamentalists seek to roll back women's right to choose in the United States, and then also insist that money against Aids must not go to organisations that help people obtain their reproductive rights. These are extremely worrying trends.

    Rights  
    Source: www.opendemocracy.net
Page of
We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 108 quotes from the Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, starting from May 21, 1944! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!

Mary Robinson

  • Born: May 21, 1944
  • Occupation: Former President of Ireland