192 Quotes by Nicholas D. Kristof

The way you get leaders to care about issues of conscience is to apply political pressure. It’s less a question of persuading leaders directly and more trying to build a social movement that holds their feet to the fire.

The paradox of honor killings is that societies with the most rigid moral codes end up sanctioning behavior that is supremely immoral: murder.

The equivalent of five jumbo jets’ worth of women die in labor each day, but the issue is almost never covered.

When women gain a voice in society, there’s evidence of less violence.

The child mortality revolution has used vaccines, treatments for diarrhea, micronutrients, and improved nutrition to reduce the number of child deaths worldwide each year from 20 million in 1960 to 6.6 million today – even as the number of children has risen.

It really is quite remarkable that Darfur has become a household name. I am gratified that’s the case.

People get away with enslaving village girls for the same reason that people got away with enslaving blacks two hundred years ago: The victims are perceived as discounted humans.

One of the things that really got to me was talking to parents who had been burned out of their villages, had family members killed, and then when men showed up at the wells to get water, they were shot.

Let’s recognize that success in life is a reflection not only of enterprise and willpower but also of chance and early upbringing, and that compassion isn’t a sign of weakness but a mark of civilization.