"The overall vision for Nordic Cooperation is to make the Nordics the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. This conference is the culmination of a joint presidency project by Finland and Åland, with the aim of promoting successful forms of democratic governance and thus contributing to sustainable development and the Nordic vision. Close Nordic cooperation is a great asset to us all, including to the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland, bringing multiple benefits to the whole region."

"Today, I know better. As I will try to explain, one of the main lessons from working on incentive problems for 25 years is that within firms, high-powered financial incentives can be very dysfunctional and attempts to bring the market inside the firm are generally misguided. Typically, it is best to avoid high-powered incentives and sometimes not use pay-for-performance at all."

"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."

""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)"

"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."

"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."

"The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it, regardless of the environment and circumstances."

"Art is the signature of civilizations."

"In his work a means of escape has been found from outmoded romanticism on the one hand and from a barren objectivity on the other."

"Sibelius is unquestionably a leader in the front rank of symphonic composers. He has got out of the ruts worn by his predecessors far more completely than Brahms got away from Beethoven, or even Richard Strauss from Wagner. If someone would only burn Finlandia he would come to our young people as an entirely original inventor of a new art form and a new harmony technique."

"Sibelius has an acutely developed sense of identification with nature and a preoccupation with myth that at one and the same time define his unique strength and his basic limitation. These preoccupations override his involvement in the human predicament, except in so far as it affects man’s relationship with nature."

"I often conduct an orchestra in my sleep; my orchestras are so huge that the back desks of the violas vanish into the horizon. And everything is so wonderful."

"If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances."

"Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces."

"If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music."

"Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water."

"Never pay any attention to what critics say…Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!"

"It is so difficult to mix with artists! You must choose business men to talk to, because artists only talk of money."

"Our wants are various, and nobody has been found able to acquire even the necessaries without the aid of other people, and there is scarcely any Nation that has not stood in need of others. The Almighty himself has made our race such that we should help one another. Should this mutual aid be checked within or without the Nation, it is contrary to Nature."

"The exercise of one coercion always makes another inevitable."

"...Fatherland without freedom and merit is a large word with little meaning."

"The more opportunities there are in a Society for some persons to live upon the toil of others, and the less those others may enjoy the fruits of their work themselves, the more is diligence killed, the former become insolent, the latter despairing, and both negligent."

"...that every individual spontaneously tries to find the place and the trade in which he can best increase National gain, if laws do not prevent him from doing so."