Freedom is a timeless value. The United Nations Charter calls for encouraging respect for fundamental freedoms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions freedom more than twenty times. All countries have committed to protecting individual freedoms on paper - but in practice, too many break their pledge.
Interpretation
Freedom is a fundamental value that is often promised but not always upheld in practice.
This quote emphasizes the importance of freedom as a core value recognized globally, particularly by institutions such as the United Nations. Despite the formal commitments outlined in charters and declarations to protect individual freedoms, the reality often falls short, highlighting a disparity between ideals and actions in various nations regarding human rights and liberties.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of human rights and freedoms in society.
Nuclear terrorism is one of the most serious threats of our time. Even one such attack could inflict mass casualties and create immense suffering and unwanted change in the world forever. This prospect should compel all of us to act to prevent such a catastrophe.
We have international standards regulating everything from t-shirts to toys to tomatoes. There are international regulations for furniture. That means there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.
Weapons of mass destruction violate more than individual lives - they cross international borders and jeopardize all people. They also drain resources that could be used instead for medicines, schools and other life-saving supplies. We must come together with even greater determination to prevent a WMD nightmare.
Throughout human history, in any great endeavour requiring the common effort of many nations and men and women everywhere, we have learned - it is only through seriousness of purpose and persistence that we ultimately carry the day. We might liken it to riding a bicycle. You stay upright and move forward so long as you keep up the momentum.
By including children with different learning abilities in mainstream and specialized schools, we can change attitudes and promote respect. By creating suitable jobs for adults with autism, we integrate them into society.
Around the world, climate change is an existential threat - but if we harness the opportunities inherent in addressing climate change, we can reap enormous economic benefits.
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
He'll cheat without scruple, who can without fear.
This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.
All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.
When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of very flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness nor integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.
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