John Hume famous quotes

04-13-2025

Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity.
-- John Hume

#Respect #Lying #Essence
I never thought in terms of being a leader. I thought very simply in terms of helping people.
-- John Hume

#Leadership #Kids #People
Before the arrival of the Credit Union, people who were from the poor background or a working class background couldn't borrow from banks.
-- John Hume

#Class #People #Credit
The civil rights movement in the United States was about the same thing, about equality of treatment for all sections of the people, and that is precisely what our movement was about
-- John Hume

#Rights #People #Movement
Like everybody at that age, I read an awful lot of pulp fiction. But at the same time, I also read quite a bit of history and read that as much for pleasure as part of a curriculum.
-- John Hume

#Age #Fiction #Curriculum
The only thing I shall talk about is my sporting achievements at school. My primary sporting achievement at school was that I dodged games for two complete years and was well through the third year before they discovered that I had completely avoided all games
-- John Hume

#School #Two #Years
The basic policy of the British Government was that since the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the United Kingdom, that was that. We asked what would happen if the majority wanted something else, if the majority wanted to see Irish unity
-- John Hume

#Government #People #Unity
My father was unemployed and I was the eldest of seven children. We were very poor. And when you ask how did we support ourselves, the only funding that we had was unemployment payments
-- John Hume

#Children #Father #Support
My father was a civil servant, fairly sort of middle ranking, low to middle ranking. He worked almost entirely in what was then called Administrative Labour, dealing with employment and unemployment issues
-- John Hume

#Father #Issues #Ranking
Therefore they should come to the table and reach an agreement that would protect their identity.
-- John Hume

#Agreement #Identity #Tables
When people are divided, the only solution is agreement
-- John Hume

#Agreement #People #Solutions
The violence had broken out in both sides, but our philosophy as a party was very, very clear
-- John Hume

#Philosophy #Party #Broken
There were two mentalities, and both mentalities had to change. There was what I called the Afrikaner mind set of the Unionist politicians, which was holding all power in their own hands, and discriminating, and their objective was to protect their identity
-- John Hume

#Hands #Two #Mind
They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date
-- John Hume

#Thinking #Violence #Use
These are the influences that everybody has. Some individuals might stand out because of one thing or another, but whether one's perception as a child of what was important or not is accurate, I don't know
-- John Hume

#Children #Perception #Important
In working class districts, you had several families living together in the one house, and it was very difficult to get a house, because the politicians who controlled housing were doing so in a very discriminatory fashion.
-- John Hume

#Fashion #Class #House
If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless.
-- John Hume

#Would Be #Language #Speechless
Total ghettoization, because they were in charge of public housing, the local council, and they deliberately located people in a ghetto situation in order to ensure that they maintained control.
-- John Hume

#Ghetto #Order #People
In coming to that agreement, my party had a clear philosophy throughout. In Northern Ireland, we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side.
-- John Hume

#Philosophy #Party #Agreement
The basis of peace and stability, in any society, has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people.
-- John Hume

#Peace #Rights #People
All conflict is about difference; whether the difference is race religion, or nationality...
-- John Hume

#Race #Differences #Diversity
Every child growing up will look to their parents, my mother and my father. My grandmother lived with us. I picked up quite a bit of family lore and history from her, which was interesting.
-- John Hume

#Mother #Growing Up #Children
I grew up in Derry, of course, and it was - Derry was the worst example of Northern Ireland's discrimination.
-- John Hume

#Example #Discrimination #Grew Up
I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.
-- John Hume

#Grateful #Opportunity #Differences
I went to the local schools, the local state primary school, and then to the local grammar school. A secondary school, which technically was an independent school, it was not part of the state educational system.
-- John Hume

#Educational #Independent #School
In my opinion, what changed the situation eventually - and, of course, it took a lot of time to change it, things like that don't change in a week or a fortnight - was the new educational system.
-- John Hume

#Educational #Opinion #Week
Difference is of the essence of humanity.
-- John Hume

#Essence #Differences #Diversity

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