“A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the 1993 Nobel peace prize jointly with Mr. F. W. de Klerk, I was deeply moved. The Nobel Peace Prize had a special meaning for me because of its involvement with South Africa… The award was a tribute to all South Africans, and especially to those who fought in the struggle; I would accept it on their behalf.”

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Nelson Mandela143

President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist 1918–2013

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“I humbly accept the Centennial Nobel Peace Prize. Forty years ago today, the Prize for 1961 was awarded for the first time to a Secretary-General of the United Nations — posthumously, because Dag Hammarskjöld had already given his life for peace in Central Africa. And on the same day, the Prize for 1960 was awarded for the first time to an African — Albert Luthuli, one of the earliest leaders of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. For me, as a young African beginning his career in the United Nations a few months later, those two men set a standard that I have sought to follow throughout my working life.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel lecture (2001)

“Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

On the awarding of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger, and Lê Ðức Thọ; one of his most quoted quips, it is often mentioned in articles and interviews, including "Stop clapping, this is serious" in Sydney Morning Herald (1 March 2003) http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/28/1046407753895.html

“Together, we join two distinguished South Africans, the late Chief Albert Lutuli and His Grace Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to whose seminal contributions to the peaceful struggle against the evil system of apartheid you paid well-deserved tribute by awarding them the Nobel Peace Prize. It will not be presumptuous of us if we also add, among our predecessors, the name of another outstanding Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Rev Martin Luther King Jr.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

He, too, grappled with and died in the effort to make a contribution to the just solution of the same great issues of the day which we have had to face as South Africans.We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.
1990s, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1993)

“I was the first MP to table a motion condemning apartheid in South Africa. When I first met Nelson Mandela he was a terrorist, when I next saw him, he was a Nobel Prize winner and the President of South Africa.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Interview with Andrew Walker (10 March 2001), quoted in BBC News, 'Tony Benn: End of an era' (10 March 2001) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1209497.stm <br class="br">2000s

“George W. Bush will surely deserve that woolliest of all peace prizes, the Nobel.”

Joe Klein (1946) American journalist

Look Who Has a Shot at the Nobel Peace Prize https://archive.is/20130630105822/www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1037629,00.html, March 13, 2005.

“I was out in the middle of Niger. And somebody just comes busting into our meeting, said, 'Nobel Peace Prize! Nobel Peace Prize!' And I'm like, "Well, yeah, wow, who won it?' And they're like, 'We did!' That was the greatest surprise in my life. And wow, wow, wow!”

David Beasley (1957) 113th Governor of South Carolina

Source: As quoted in Kate Hudson on being a World Food Programme ambassador, CBS News, (22 November 2020)

“I view the award of the Nobel Prize to me as an expression of understanding of my intentions, my aspirations, the objectives of the profound transformation we have begun in our country, and the ideas of new thinking. I see it as your acknowledgment of my commitment to peaceful means of implementing the objectives of perestroika.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Nobel Address (1991)

“It is interesting to note that the Nobel Peace Prize won't be awarded this year. When one recalls that Martin Luther King got the prize last year, it may be just as well that the committee decided not to award one this year. Perhaps it was too difficult to choose between Stokely Carmichael and Ho Chi Minh.”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

Television commentary (1966) quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/27/weekinreview/word-for-word-jesse-helms-north-carolinian-has-enemies-but-no-one-calls-him.html (1994) <br class="br">1960s

“There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war. … The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Essentials to Peace (1953)
Context: There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war.... The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war. Almost daily I hear from the wives, or mothers, or families of the fallen. The tragedy of the aftermath is almost constantly before me.

“When Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, few people had the poor taste to ask what she had ever done, or even claimed to do, for the cause of peace. Her address to the ceremony of investiture did little to resolve any doubt on this score and much to increase it.”

Christopher Hitchens book The Missionary Position

Source: 2010s, 2011, The Missionary Position, Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice (2012)

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