Harri Holkeri Quotes

If you come to a negotiation table saying you have the final truth, that you know nothing but the truth and that is final, you will get nothing.

There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on.

Without accepting the other person's thinking, you cannot further your own interest. You need the other's help to get results.

You cannot make easy decisions unless you first commit yourself to hard solutions.

If we go back in the history of different nations, violence and the use of force are part of their heritage. These are the traditions of mankind.

Discussion is just a tool. You have to aim; the final goal must be a decision.

We have the tools, but we have to learn how to use them. That is my political philosophy.

If there is something I would like to do as President of the General Assembly, it is to place more emphasis on the issue of education, which enables a better life for women.

Peace enforcement is a much more difficult kind of operation than peacekeeping.

I think we have grave problems. I am very much concerned about environmental questions, even though in Finnish society, we are not facing the most urgent problems.

In Finland, we learned quite a lot from our own civil war. The wounds were visible when I was a boy, but my generation went into the Second World War and it united the Finnish nation, so I do not see any more wounds.

When the problems in Northern Ireland started, it was not a question of Protestantism or Catholicism, because the Catholic church was the only church at that time-it was a nationalist conflict.

There are many challenges, there are many obstacles; let us try to change the obstacles to advantages.

I recently reread an article of mine written in 1964, and I think it is still valid. There is not much difference. Many of the items on the agenda 37 years ago are still there.

In international or national crises, there are always questions of lack of confidence. You have to change the minds of the people in order to get results.

What we can do as individuals may not be very much on the global scale, but we have to start the change by living as we are teaching.

One of the biggest development issues in the world is the education of girls. In the United States and Europe, it has been accepted, but not in Africa and the developing countries.

Without rebuilding the confidence between parties, you will never succeed.

The Baltic Sea is becoming more and more polluted. Not everybody living near the shore of the Baltic Sea is protecting it. It is the water of life for countries like Finland and Sweden.