UN General Assembly
1986

As I have said, I believe that we can be hopeful about the world and the prospects for freedom. We only need look around us to see the new technologies that may some day spare future generations the nightmare of nuclear terror, or the growing ranks of democratic activists and freedom fighters, or the increasing movement towards free market economies, or the extent of world-wide concern about the rights of the individual in the face of brute, State power. In the past, when I have noted such trends - when I have called for a "forward strategy for freedom" and predicted the ultimate triumph of democratic rule over totalitarianism - some have accused me of telling people what they want to hear, of urging them not: to engage the day but to escape it. Yet, to hope is to believe in humanity; and in its future. Hope remains the highest reality, the age-old power; hope is at the root of all the great ideas and causes that have bettered the lot of humankind across the centuries.