people-from-helsinki

"We have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust... I have never thought about my age or gender. I think of the reasons I got into politics and those things for which we have won the trust of the electorate."

"Media reports say Sanna Marin was raised in a "rainbow family", living in a rented apartment with her mother and her mother's female partner... But she said her mother had always been supportive and made her believe she could do anything she wanted. She was the first person in her family to go to university."

"There is enormous demand and a huge market for new climate technology, Will our country have the bold pioneering spirit needed to prosper?"

"We are entering a decade during which we must find solutions for combating climate change, This calls for decisions that reduce emissions and strengthen carbon sinks. We will rely on scientific data, while taking account of the social and regional impacts of the solutions proposed."

"well taken care of and that they have that social life and also all the support for the education that they need."

"It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do things by yourself, Of course, you have to work by yourself, but still we have that network that helps you if life gets tough. And I think that creates that kind of trust that societies need to really bloom."

"We are not perhaps the most cheerful people in the globe, But of course, we have a good nation and we have a good society."

"We would be in trouble without the United States involving [itself] in the war of Ukraine."

"I think China could play an important role to stop the war, if they wanted. It's up to China how they want to act concerning the war. But we shouldn't only rely on that, on China or any others … we should make sure we are stronger."

"As digitalisation becomes more and more important … we must be able to trust technology. Our common lifelines have to be based on solid cooperation in science research and innovation as well."

"In increasingly critical areas, from medical equipment to new technologies and energy, we have become far too dependent on cooperation with regimes which do not share our common values."

"We need to draw the right lessons from the recent global challenges, wars and crises."

"We have to make sure that we are building those capabilities when it comes to European defence, European defence industry."

"The United States has given a lot of weapons, a lot of financial aid, a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Europe isn't strong enough yet."

"I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn't strong enough right now. We would be in trouble without the United States."

"We cannot be dependent, for example, on microchips or semiconductors or any kind of critical technologies when it comes to authoritarian countries. Because if those trading routes would be cut suddenly, then we would be in trouble."

"We all have worries when it comes to China and we must make sure that we don't have that kind of critical dependencies when it comes to China."

"We have become far too dependent on cooperation with regimes that do not share our common values."

"Make no mistake, if Russia wins its terrible gamble, it will not be the only one to feel empowered."

"I encourage everyone to exercise their right to vote, as free elections are the cornerstone and foundation of a democratic society. Finland is worth fighting for, but it is also worth voting for."

"Strategic autonomy also means defending our values. It is in Finland’s interests to help build a stronger Europe, especially now, when the world is crying out for defenders of human rights, equality and cooperation."

"We must strengthen our strategic autonomy – that is, Europe’s self-sufficiency – our resilience and our global partnerships, especially with other democracies."

"Russia may have started this war, but they will not win it. A world where undemocratic powers subjugate other states, in blatant disregard of the UN Charter and human suffering, is a world we must leave behind forever. Russia’s friends are now few and far between."

"Together, we have defended our values and taken the necessary actions on our own terms. I hope that as a nation, we can be proud of this."

"This consensus provides a good foundation for building our future as a NATO member, With our decision, we have strengthened Finland’s position and broadened our room for manoeuvre in a situation where it was at risk of narrowing and even being compromised altogether."

"Finland should urgently apply for NATO membership"

"This war (by Russia) against a sovereign European nation (Ukraine) puts the European security order at risk. In this changing security environment, Finland and Sweden will further enhance their cooperation."

"The strength of a society is measured not by the wealth of its most affluent members, but by how well its most vulnerable citizens are able to cope. The question we need to ask is whether everyone has the chance to lead a life of dignity."

"Mikä olen? Tähdenlento Luojan ikuisessa yössä, tomujyvä aavan aineen lakkaamattomassa työssä.'Mutta sentään! Tahdon antaa hehkun hetkelleni tälle, tahdon loistaa, tahdon laulaa kiitoslaulun elämälle.'Tahdon laulaa: mitä siitä, jos ma lopuin, kussa aloin, mutta silmänräpäyksen valokaarin yössä paloin!'Hetken sykin, liekkisydän, aurinkona maailman oman tunsin kauneuden kaipuun, rakkauden rajattoman.'Alistukaa, avaruudet, pienen tähden välkynnälle! Tahdon loistaa, tahdon laulaa kiitoslaulun elämälle."

"Nyt varjo vain on edessäni elon matka. Ja takanain on tuskan tie, se jot’ en jatka.'Mun takanain on kevät alla julman kirren. Sen elää sain, sain kynnykselle suvivirren.'Sen mukanaan vei käsi kallis, kylmentyvä. Nyt suven maan nään sydämessä hauta syvä."

"The amendment would introduce harsher sentences for serious sexual offences against children overall. In my view, that is fully justified, for example in light of a child’s vulnerability, even if the act does not meet the threshold for rape."

"Vegetarianism is necessary for the very rich and the very poor. The poor need it because it is cheap and nourishing. The rich, in order to cleanse all the poisons from the corpses that have accumulated in their overfed organism."

"We may question, do the European policymakers act morally correct when they do not take serious attempts to prevent the arctic oil drilling. (2013)"

"We’re in a mess but we should put things into perspective: The EU is constant crisis management. You move from one crisis to the other and, at the end of the day, it’s just a question of the size of the crisis and who gets hit the hardest. I have always believed the EU advances in three-phases: Phase no. 1 is crisis, phase no. 2 is chaos and phase no. 3 is sub-optimal solution, and that’s very much the nature of the beast."

"(On same-sex marriage) It’s a question of human rights, gender equality and equality."

"Call me the “stan” man. Or have you ever been to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizia or Kazakhstan. Give it eight weeks and I will have done them all."

"I had always regarded language as more a question of utility than identity. Therefore, I promptly noted that all the (EU) meetings should be conducted in English and French. My older colleagues laughed. Later I understood why. On the second day of the Finnish presidency (of the EU) a German delegation refused to participate in an informal ministerial meeting because no German interpretation had been arranged."

""Joint statement on behalf of the Nordic states by President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb at the UN Security Council session on Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September 2025" President of the Republic of Finland (September 24, 2025)"

"The most wretched of all current trends is of course the mass extinction of organisms, which has been escalating for decades and is still increasing in magnitude."

"On a global scale, the main problem is not the inflation of human life, but its ever-increasing, mindless over-valuation. Emphasis on the inalienable right to life of foetuses, premature infants and the brain-dead has become a kind of collective mental illness."

"The crippling human cover spread over the living layer of the Earth must forcibly be made lighter: breathing holes must be punctured in this blanket and the ecological footprint of man brushed away. Forms of boastful consumption must violently be crushed, the natality of the species violently controlled, and the number of those already born violently reduced — by any means possible."

"Man has learned nothing: there are people who are still sanctimonious in their opposition to violence regardless of the state of the world, and who will presumably continue in the same way until the end. Frolicking in peace and love must be sweet – no doubt about that. Yet it is a nonsensical and disastrous attitude. With a smothering shroud of six billion people and all their demands covering the surface of the earth, pacifism is dead."

"The chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life."

"The 20th century peatlands ditching in Finland was the worst human environmental destruction action in Europe."

"Finnish forests: Let us remind the satellite pictures of the 1970’s winter in which the old forest appeared black and young forest and cut downs white. Already then the Finnish borders were like drawn on the map: White Finland between black Karelian and black Sweden. Finnish Forest Research Institute hicced up some time and then decided that the pictures are fake. . ."

"Although my view is a world-wide one and my area of observation is Europe, the nation closest to my heart is, understandably, my homeland. And it is a fortunate coincidence, fortunate in terms of the explanation of the world, that it is this country which is the clearest example of the playground of destructive development in the whole world."

"When a novel department store called Gigantti was opened in the capitol area a year or two ago, which promised gadgets of many colors for the stinking cheap price of 9:90, 99:90, 999:90; the parking field's rafts of metal plated beetles reached the horizon, and the human lines wriggling midst them in tens of thousands surpassed all the records of the good old Soviet Union. As I looked at those newspaper pictures, a tormented scream erupted from my lips: no democracy, for heaven's sake, no democracy! No common voting right, never! No, no, no!"

"It is an assumption brought forth countless of times in various contexts that the world would be better, drifting slower towards the ruin, if women had the "power"; if political leadership, decision making, government and economic life was in the hands of women. I think reality, the observation material, supports the assumption."

"Virtually, Finnish woods are stripped so bare, so sold out and first and foremost, so long way off from genuine diverse natural forest, that the resources of language will not permit excessive words. Finnish forest economy has been compared to the ravaging of rain forests. Nevertheless, the noteworthy difference is that there is a half or two thirds left from rain forests, but from Finnish forests there is left - excluding arctic Lapland - 0,6 per cent."

"What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat."