"U.N. Women was created due to the acknowledgement that gender equality and women's empowerment was still, despite progress, far from what it should be. Transforming political will and decisions, such as the Member States creating U.N. Women, into concrete steps towards gender equality and women's empowerment, I think is one of the main challenges."

"For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected."

"In artillery exercises, women always win because they're more accurate."

"People see I am a mother and head of a household. Today in Chile, one-third of households are run by women. They wake up, take the children to school, go to work. To them I am hope."

"To dream is to realize that the legacy we leave is written in the hearts of others."

"That is now my mission: to provide a European vision of growth, employment, prosperity - in one word, our future."

"A dream nurtured by daily toil will inevitably outshine a wish born of idle hope. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a subtle truth that vision without execution is fantasy; execution without vision is chaos."