Nicholas D. Kristof Quotes

One of the principles of journalism is you don’t lie. You never lie.

I have often tried to tell the story of a place through people there.

Every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea.

One of the great failings of the American education system (in our view) is that young people can graduate from university without any understanding of poverty at home or abroad.

Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but a mark of civilization.

If you just try to make rational arguments about why people should care about Congo and how 5 million people have died, then people tend not to be receptive. But once you’ve created a connection of empathy, rational arguments can play a supportive role.

I think when hundreds of thousands of lives are on the line, you might have to set aside some principles.

Half a million women die each year around the world in pregnancy. It’s not biology that kills them so much as neglect.

America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.

A little bit of attention can go a long way.

The tide of history is turning women from beasts of burden and sexual playthings into full-fledged human beings.

Photographs are still being taken but aren’t being shown. There’s one of a skeleton bound at the wrists with pants still around its ankles; if it was a woman, she was likely raped; if it was a man, he was possibly castrated.