women-nobel-laureates

"Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy. Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace. She embodies the hope of a different future, one where the fundamental rights of citizens are protected, and their voices are heard. In this future, people will finally be free to live in peace."

"In its long history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has honoured brave women and men who have stood up to repression, who have carried the hope of freedom in prison cells, on the streets and in public squares, and who have shown by their actions that peaceful resistance can change the world. In the past year, Ms Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people."

"Venezuela’s authoritarian regime makes political work extremely difficult. As a founder of Súmate, an organisation devoted to democratic development, Ms Machado stood up for free and fair elections more than 20 years ago. As she said: "It was a choice of ballots over bullets." In political office and in her service to organisations since then, Ms Machado has spoken out for judicial independence, human rights and popular representation. She has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people."

"The Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace — to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to María Corina Machado. She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times Ms Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided — an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government. This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground."

"I accept this is as a recognition to our people, to the millions of Venezuelans that are anonymous and are risking everything they have for freedom, justice and peace and I’m absolutely convinced that we will achieve it."

"This country, Venezuela, is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money."

"I believe the benefits of two civilizations – a European education followed by the freedom and opportunities of this country – have been essential to whatever contributions I have been able to make to science."

"One of the few Latin American intellectuals who stood up against fascism and spoke about the impending fate of European Jews was Gabriela Mistral, who, in 1945, became the only Latin American woman to date to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. While not a Jew herself, we include here one of her essays, "Message about the Jews,"-which she wrote in 1934, shortly before assuming her post as consul to Chile in Portugal-because it is a poignant testimony to her commitment to human rights and the Jewish people throughout historical times of great suffering when countless other prominent intellectuals chose silence. Mistral was also influential in assisting with Jewish emigration to Chile when, after 1939, most Latin American nations had closed their borders to desperate Jewish refugees seeking asylum."

"I think I am a bit like Mistral: always a foreigner, always from somewhere else."

"Chilean Gabriela Mistral who has been canonized as the Saint Mother…Mistral was an advocate for human rights and the plight of the Indian long before those concerns became fashionable."

"The official image of Gabriela Mistral violates all cultural stereotypes since her poems to mothers, women and children are filled with a deep ideological content that goes beyond that of a teacher preoccupied with the future of her pupils. In the poems by Mistral included in this anthology, we get a glimpse of her powerful imagination and figurative language based on minute elements. Her poetry is often stripped of the traditional metaphors associated with the poetic language employed by the women of her time. Mistral's voice, depicted in melodious lullabies and fantastic stories"

"This was the kind of woman she was: attentive to the present, dominated by the conscience of her deeds and of the course that history takes, incapable of refusing the claims of those who suffer from hunger or thirst for justice and love...If we read her work carefully, we will find embodied there the same concepts and attitudes, and it would almost be impossible to distinguish between art and life or to say if there is more authentic poetry in her verses that in her acts...Everything she did, said, and wrote was in some way saturated with that poetic air, revealing the marvelous, if somewhat delicate balance between the ‘is’ and the ‘should be.'"

"The other event was reading Gabriela Mistral. She had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959 and her books were part of the library's small Latin American collection. Up to then I had not read any work at all which railed against women being forced to take on the "shame" of reproduction, pregnancy, sexuality. I read these poems with immense relief. Finding that you are not alone in anger at "immutable" laws inscribed by an overarching patriarchy assuages anxiety to a degree that's hard to describe."

"Mistral’s poetry is resolutely hermetic and often has a nightmarish quality. Even her nominally straightforward verses — those having to do with elements of nationalism, such as national symbology or national landscapes — contain a surreal quality...Mistral surrounded herself with and was surrounded by metaphors of silence, shame, and secrecy. Much of her poetic oeuvre revolves around a private world difficult to decipher, a world of loss and despair, of fantasy escapes into other realities."

"Gabriela Mistral of Chile, the only Latin American woman to have won the Nobel Prize, was an educator, pacifist, and humanist who wrote with matchless intensity of frustrated and suffering womanhood. Her children's songs and lullabies are among the tenderest in the Spanish language. Without children of her own, she turned her love of children into a universal love for all humanity. She became a kind of world mother, singing about children "as no one before her had ever done," said Paul Valéry. "While so many poets have exalted, celebrated, cursed or invoked death, or built, deepened, divinized the passion of love, few seem to have meditated on that transcendental act par excellence, the production of the living being by the living being."

"I translated Mistral because I discovered that she really has not been brought into English very much, Neruda over and over and over, but not Mistral. I fell in love with her. You have to fall in love, I think, to do a long translation. Yes, and then it's fun."

"Poets—incredible nature poets like Mary Oliver, Gabriela Mistral, or Audre Lorde—look deeply at the world and make us feel like we are connected. Poetry that addresses the natural world helps us repair that connection. When you are paying attention to something, it’s a way of loving something. How can we continue to hurt something that we love?"

"Some of the greatest Latin American poets have been women. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, María Sabina, and Violeta Parra are among them, but their true place in the history of poetry has yet to be fully acknowledged...At the turn of the century, a legendary group of women poets emerged, including Delmira Agustini, Alfonsina Storni, and Gabriela Mistral. Their work caused scandal and outrage but ultimately opened the way for other women to explore their experience in a woman's voice...Mistral was the paradoxical mestiza, who embodied contradiction. A childless woman who exalted maternity, she simultaneously embraced and scorned her indianidad. Her extraordinary mix of biblical and Amerindian rhythms got her the Nobel Prize in 1945."

"Just a few years ago, one could easily identify the women in all of Latin America who stood out in literature. Names like Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarború, Delmira Agustini, Claudia Lars, not to mention the greatest of them all, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz..."

"Ya en la mitad de mis días espigo esta verdad con frescura de flor: la vida es oro y dulzura de trigo, es breve el odio e inmenso el amor."

"Piececitos de niño, Dos joyitas sufrientes, ¡Cómo pasan sin veros Las gentes!"

"The German, Polish, or Lithuanian Jew has been deprived of the sacred right to escape and be free."

"It would be foolish for our America to latch onto the filthy tail of this antisemitic campaign. We have enough to do in our own nations-where everything is still in a state of primordial chemical soup-without distracting ourselves with French antics or absurd ventures in Berlin."

"At the very least we should not continue, in the manner of the Pharisees, using the ancient proclamation against the Jew who has been thoroughly undermined by us. Moreover, we should, at a minimum, desist from exclaiming in plazas or in our homes the rebuke that was heard in the Middle Ages: "Hunt? the Jewish dog for being an infidel." Jesus Christ, in his infinite nature, would surely be infinitely disgusted upon hearing us utter such words as his supposed advocates and the sentinels of his doctrine."

"Let's not ask our countries to accept a massive number of desolate Jewish immigrants. But let's do ask that they-with little rational effort, which is to say, with basic humanity-accept a small-agreed-upon quota of Jews who Europe has spewed from its twisted Christian viscera. Argentina has established-and I believe quite comfortably-its portion of the quota. If our twenty countries can follow through on this great act, which can only be termed an authentic act of decency, we will have accomplished an effective, honest, and generous feat. One should weigh and measure such adjectives carefully as they are very important to those who safeguard the continent's honor. By way of this act, we will have returned to Europe some of the culture and Christian policies that it originally imparted to us. In its stance toward the East, Europe has marred and debased its bimillenary rule. Let us cast back to Europe, from our side of the world, a collective gesture of an integral and inclusive Christian right that we learned from that continent during its purer era and that we have strengthened rather than squandered."

"We had no ambition for more land or power, and nothing in the religion commands us to conquer non-Yazidis and spread our faith."

"I still think that being forced to leave your home out of fear is one of the worst injustices a human being can face."

"I was only one of hundreds of thousands of Yazidi victims."

"I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine."

"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love–and now become as the most hated one–the one–You have thrown away as unwanted–unloved. I call, I cling, I want–and there is no One to answer–no One on Whom I can cling–no, No One.–Alone … Where is my Faith–even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness–My God–how painful is this unknown pain–I have no Faith–I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart–& make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them–because of the blasphemy–If there be God –please forgive me–When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven–there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.–I am told God loves me–and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

"what I learned that year was that the only love, beyond those that are conditional which one day dry up, the only thing that remains and does not exhaust itself is that love that does not expect love. And so I realized that the richest person in this world is Mother Teresa. No millionaire is richer than that woman...I believe she has boundless love towards humanity."

"How can a girl like you become a nun? Do you realize that you are burying yourself?"

"I could go on and on, filling page after page with dense examples of disasters and crises where Mother Teresa had had no involvement whatsoever. For me, a Calcuttan, born and bred, it does not come as surprise, as I know her order has no infrastructure — indeed it had never been her intention to create an infrastructure for such work, as she had frequently said, 'I'm not a social worker.' But what I find somewhat disturbing is that she remained inactive when children were hurt or killed, or were at the risk of being orphaned … this did not sit comfortably with her 'Child First' philosophy. But then, for her the unborn child was far more important than the actual child. Having gone through hundreds of her speeches I have wondered, when compared to the unborn child if the actual child mattered to her at all."

"Mother Teresa of Calcutta actually said, in her speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, 'The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion.' What? How can a woman with such cock-eyed judgement be taken seriously on any topic, let alone be thought seriously worthy of a Nobel Prize?"

"Mother Teresa prefers providence to planning; her rules are designed to prevent any drift towards materialism: the sisters must remain on equal terms with the poor.… Finally, how competent are the sisters at managing pain? On a short visit, I could not judge the power of their spiritual approach, but I was disturbed to learn that the formulary includes no strong analgesics. Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Teresa’s approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer."

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

"Mother Teresa is a religious imperialist."

"MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself — and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?"

"The picture, and its context, announce Mother Teresa as what she is: a religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer and an accomplice of worldly, secular powers. Her mission has always been of this kind. The irony is that she has never been able to induce anybody to believe her."

"Mother Teresa was a true patriot. A great Albanian. She showed the world how to help the poor and devoted her life to the neediest without interfering in political issues. Just like any religious leader should do... I don't believe in God. I'm a Marxist. I believe in man and in the people. But we liked Mother Teresa. You know, she felt at home here. She came with an open mind and praised our achievements."

"My initial impression was of all the photographs and footage I’ve ever seen of Belsen and places like that, because all the patients had shaved heads. No chairs anywhere, there were just these stretcher beds. They’re like First World War stretcher beds. There’s no garden, no yard even. No nothing. And I thought what is this? This is two rooms with fifty to sixty men in one, fifty to sixty women in another. They’re dying. They’re not being given a great deal of medical care."

"I was able to keep my complaining conscience quiet because we had been taught that the Holy Spirit was guiding Mother. To doubt her was a sign that we were lacking in trust and, even worse, guilty of the sin of pride. I shelved my objections and hoped that one day I would understand the many things that seemed to be contradictions... For Mother, it was the spiritual well-being of the poor that mattered most. Material aid was a means of reaching their souls, of showing the poor that God loved them. In the homes for the dying, Mother taught the sisters how to secretly baptize those who were dying. Sisters were to ask each person in danger of death if he wanted a “ticket to heaven.” An affirmative reply was to mean consent to baptism. The sister was then to pretend she was just cooling the person’s forehead with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptizing him, saying quietly the necessary words. Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa’s sisters were baptizing Hindus and Moslems."

"You urge Judge Ito to look into his heart — as he sentences Charles Keating — and do what Jesus would do. I submit the same challenge to you. Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would probably and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the 'indulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it!"

"This very successful old and withered person, who doesn't look in the least like a woman, especially when she raises her clenched fists in prayer, and who, for us, is a very suspect holder of the Nobel Prize ... has become for us the symbol of all that is bad in motherhood and womanhood an image, with which we do not wish to be associated. Mother Teresa is the perfect image of a sexless, religious woman. This is, however, not the image of womanhood that we want. Show us instead the mother or daughter who can take delight in the most enjoyable of all worldly pleasures, sexual intimacy. You, you nightmare of women! You unliberated, enslaved wives, mothers, nuns and aunts, what do you want from us, who have finally decided that we are going to take control of our bodies, our children, and our destiny into our own hands? Do you not realize that you are all merely puppets of the devil?"

"She is truly a living saint. She serves as a source of inspiration for me to this day... She is unique in that all her requests for assistance are always approved. No one can say no to Mother Teresa."

"My own Jesus, They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God – they would go through all that suffering if they had just a little hope of possessing God. In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing (Jesus, please forgive my blasphemies, I have been told to write everything). That darkness that surrounds me on all sides. I can’t lift my soul to God – no light or inspiration enters my soul. I speak of love for souls, of tender love for God, words pass through my words [sic, lips], and I long with a deep longing to believe in them! What do I labour for? If there be no God—there can be no soul.—If there is no soul then Jesus—You also are not true... Jesus don't let my soul be deceived—nor let me deceive anyone. In the call You said that I would have to suffer much.—Ten years—my Jesus, You have done to me according to Your will—and Jesus hear my prayer—if this pleases You—if my pain and suffering—my darkness and separation gives You a drop of consolation—my own Jesus, do with me as You wish—as long as You wish, without a single glance at my feelings and pain... I beg of You only one thing—please do not take the trouble to return soon.—I am ready to wait for You for all eternity."

"Often I wonder what does really God get from me in this state — no faith, no love — not even in feelings. The other day I can't tell you how bad I felt. — There was a moment when I nearly refused to accept. — Deliberately I took the Rosary and very slowly and without even meditating or thinking – I said it slowly and calmly. The moment passed — but the darkness is so dark, and the pain is so painful. – But I accept whatever He gives and I give whatever He takes. People say they are drawn closer to God — seeing my strong faith. – is this not deceiving people? Every time I have wanted to tell the truth – “that I have no faith” – the words just do not come – my mouth remains closed. – And yet I still keep on smiling at God and all."

"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted."