Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

"Le courage de nos différences. Without becoming irresponsible, to accept what divides us — with humility and with pride. It is by the 'new' that mankind is saved or betrayed."

"Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity — intellectual, emotional, and moral. Respect for the word — to employ it with scrupulous care and in incorruptible heartfelt love of truth — is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak...""

"A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility."

"The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others."

"Godhet är något så enkelt: att alltid finnas för andra, att aldrig söka sig själv."

"Give me a pure heart — that I may see Thee. A humble heart — that I may hear Thee, A heart of love — that I may serve Thee, A heart of faith — that I may abide in Thee."

"Maturity: among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates."

"He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the Way ends on the Cross — even when it is leading him through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem."

"Att vara fri, att kunna stå upp och lämna allt — utan att se sig tillbaka. Att säga ja —"

"For all that has been — Thanks! To all that shall be — Yes!"

"It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy — from lack of character."

"What makes loneliness an anguish Is not that I have no one to share my burden, But this: I have only my own burden to bear."

"Jag kämpar för det omöjliga: att mitt liv skall få en mening. Jag vågar inte, vet inte hur jag skulle kunna tro: att jag inte är ensam."

"Bed att din ensamhet blir sporren att finna något att leva för, stort nog att dö för."

"Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions."

"There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return."

"Är livet fattigt? Är icke snarare din hand för smal, dina ögonlinser grumlade? Det är du som måste växa."

"We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours."

"Time goes by: reputation increases, ability declines."

"The longest journey Is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest For the source of his being."

"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

"Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them."

"Mät aldrig bergets höjd förrän du nått toppen. Då skall du se hur lågt det var."

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road."

"Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy."

"Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible — not to have run away."

"Friendship needs no words — it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness."

"Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we are not free in our own minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so? ... Only in true surrender to the interest of all can we reach that strength and independence, that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to measure up to our duty to the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance was given to build in time a world of peace."

"The big, shoe-thumping fellow continues as a dark thunderhead to threaten all unrepentant non-Communists with hail and thunder."

"It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics...[He is] so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted."

"The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body's total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form?"

"It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the "dark shade of courage" alone that the spell can be broken."

"Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault."

"The Assembly has witnessed over the last weeks how historical truth is established; once an allegation has been repeated a few times, it is no longer an allegation, it is an established fact, even if no evidence has been brought out in order to support it."

"Those who invoke history will certainly be heard by history. And they will have to accept its verdict."

"You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization."

"It is not the Soviet Union or indeed any other big Powers who need the United Nations for their protection. It is all the others. In this sense, the Organization is first of all their Organization and I deeply believe in the wisdom with which they will be able to use it and guide it. I shall remain in my post during the term of my office as a servant of the Organization in the interests of all those other nations, as long as they wish me to do so. In this context the representative of the Soviet Union spoke of courage. It is very easy to resign; it is not so easy to stay on. It is very easy to bow to the wish of a big power. It is another matter to resist. As is well known to all Members of this Assembly, I have done so before on many occasions and in many directions. If it is the wish of those nations who see in the Organization their best protection in the present world, I shall now do so again."

"Do we refer to the purposes of the Charter? They are expressions of universally shared ideals which cannot fail us, though we, alas, often fail them. Or do we think of the institutions of the United Nations? They are our tools. We fashioned them. We use them. It is our responsibility to remedy any flaws there may be in them. ... This is a difficult lesson for both idealists and realists, though for different reasons. I suppose that, just as the first temptation of the realist is the illusion of cynicism, so the first temptation of the idealist is the illusion of Utopia."

"In a political context of the utmost significance, ["freedom from fear"] recognizes a human right which, in a broad sense, may be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights."

"I never discuss discussions."

"Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon."

"The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real. The day will come when men will see the UN and what it means clearly. Everything will be all right — you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction, and see it as a drawing they made themselves."

"A man of firm convictions does not ask, and does not receive, understanding from those with whom he comes into conflict. ... A mature man is his own judge. In the end, his only firm support is being faithful to his own convictions. The advice of others may be welcome and valuable, but it does not free him from responsibility. Therefore, he may become very lonely."

"Let's hope that Ken Oosterbroek will be the last person to die."

"We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world — you, too, can make his life’s work your own. Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man. He speaks to what’s best inside us. After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength. Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves. And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” What a magnificent soul it was. We will miss him deeply."

"The questions we face today — how to promote equality and justice; how to uphold freedom and human rights; how to end conflict and sectarian war — these things do not have easy answers. But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I. Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done. South Africa shows that is true. South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes. We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity."

"It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth. He changed laws, but he also changed hearts."

"Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions. He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history. On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of unconditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that “prisoners cannot enter into contracts.” But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal. And because he was not only a leader of a movement but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy, true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African."

"Mandela taught us the power of action, but he also taught us the power of ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those who you agree with, but also those who you don’t agree with. He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet. He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and his passion, but also because of his training as an advocate. He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement. And he learned the language and the customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depend upon his."

"He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood — a son and a husband, a father and a friend. And that’s why we learned so much from him, and that’s why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith. He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well."