Kerry Kennedy
Over the years, Chevron has behaved in a way that reinforces the worst stereotypes about large corporations: it has cynically avoided responsibility for its past and watched in indifference as more people become sick and die because of its failure to deal with its legacy environmental issues.Collection: Failure
Chevron's failure to adhere to basic standards of decency undermines the credibility of our capitalist model and diminishes confidence that our judicial system can serve the poor as well as the rich.Collection: Failure
I've learned powerful lessons about the nature of forgiveness from human rights defenders. For example, for the greater good of his country, Kofi Woods emerged from a torture chamber in Liberia to later defend the very men who had brutalized him.Collection: Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a gift, and central to faith.Collection: Forgiveness
Throughout Africa, as in much of the world, women are responsible for tilling the fields, deciding what to plant, nurturing the crops, and harvesting the food. They are the first to be aware of environmental damage that harms agricultural production.Collection: Environmental
A mentor is someone with a willingness to help others, who has a capacity to inspire, a determination to work hard, a clear sense of vision, an inspiring purpose, a deep sense of integrity and an appreciation for joy.Collection: Work
In planes, I used to try to look behind the clouds to see if I saw an angel.
I went to the Convent of the Sacred Heart for four years. It was interesting to me because, in a family where men were clearly favored over women, this was an atmosphere, a world, run by strong, determined, smart women in leadership, who had high expectations of the girls, and this tremendous sense of love and commitment to the wider world.
Firefighters and rescue workers are American superheroes.
So I think that having Donald Trump as president of our country, and also his impact around the world, would have left my father in dismay.
The iconic life of Nelson Mandela is testament to the fact that the road to freedom is quite often long and fraught with great personal sacrifice.
Everyone who has had success in his or her field of endeavor has had a mentor along the way.
The struggle for human rights is at its core a struggle for human dignity.
Daddy loved our country, he loved our history. He was always talking about American history and telling us stories from American history, and loved our most treasured values of freedom, democracy, justice.
It's obvious that China faces a range of demographic and economic difficulties stemming from its own population growth, and that the global community has a vested interest in avoiding the worst impacts of that growth.
I loved that television show Mad Men because it really was a reminder of what reality was back then.
Daddy was never ruthless but he was tough.
After my father died, we went to church for a long time every day, and then every other day during the summer.
I have to tell you, virtually every country I've gone to, the Catholic church is on the cutting edge of social change. Really extraordinary.
At the moment of greatest love, there is greatest fear, and at the moment of enormous repression, there is resistance, and therefore a chance at revolutionary change.
There were times I should have been completely emotionally available to my kids and I wasn't there, even for reading a book with them or watching TV or tucking my daughter into bed.
I'm not the most organized person.
I thought of running for office when I was in law school, but I wanted to work on human rights.
I married a politician. But I thought it would be tough for my children to have two parents as politicians.
In fact, most people who are bullies are people who have been abused in one way or the other in some other part of their life, and somebody who is bullied at school might come home and bully their younger siblings or their cousins or other people in their neighborhood, or in cyberspace.
We've got to pass legislation which will allow people to have access to competent counsel no matter who they are.
Elective office is one of many ways to serve the community and the country. It's one that I would consider at some point.
It's hard to have both parents involved in elective office at the same time.
I have 10 brothers and sisters. My mother raised us because my father died when I was 8.
The time of day when there was quiet and serenity was every night when we gathered in my parents' bedroom and knelt down together and prayed.
When I was younger, I had so many people in my family die. In my mind, heaven was as physical a place as home or school, and I knew that everyone I loved was together, enormously happy, and watching over me and awaiting my coming to this extraordinary place.
I myself am a soccer mom, a volleyball mom and a basketball mom.
My earliest memories are of visiting the justice department.
My father loved democracy. He loved the ancient Greeks because they invented democracy, and he shared their contempt for those who refused to participate in the political process.
I grew up outside of Washington D.C., a town in which the largest industry is government and in which almost everyone I knew was involved in creating policies which impact people across our country and around the globe.
I understood at a young age that administrations come and go, but laws stay. So I decided to become a lawyer in order to help create a more just and peaceful world, not just in a fleeting moment but in a way that will endure from one generation to the next.
Having a sense of humor is a part of being courageous. It's a source of strength.
In a sense, all of us have the capacity to be courageous.
I think of myself as a human-rights advocate and as a mother.
Ambien is one of the most prescribed pills in America. A lot of people take it every night or several times a week or several times a month in order to help them sleep. I'm just not one of those people. That's the perception of me. But that's not the reality.
In my human-rights work, perhaps the most important thing is gaining the trust of the victims.
The result of being a Kennedy is that I have extraordinary opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have.
So when people say how horrible it is that Donald Trump is president, well, yeah, but we've faced a lot worse than this and our country went on to go from the world of 'Mad Men' to the world it is today, and that's what's going to happen now. That's what's going to happen in the next 50 years. We're going to be fine.
It's important to reach out to people who are marginalized.
There are no wealthy people on Rikers Island because if you are wealthy, you go free because you make bail.
My earliest memories are when my father was the attorney general at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. We would go to visit him at the Justice Department and take the tunnel over to the FBI building and watch the sharpshooters at practice.
Over the decades people from all walks of life have told me, 'When your father died, so did my hope.'
Those who suffer profoundly are granted profound wisdom.
Look, my mother's not a welfare woman. She certainly had plenty of help. But there's no substitute for a husband and partner.
There was no sense of burden, like, 'I now must carry on Robert Kennedy's unfinished work.' Absolutely not.