“Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.”

“The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.”

“I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given to participate in that work as a representative of my country, Canada, whose people have, I think, shown their devotion to peace.”

“I cannot think of anything more difficult than to say something which would be worthy of this impressive and, for me, memorable occasion, and of the ideals and purposes which inspired the Nobel Peace Award.”

“But while we all pray for peace, we do not always, as free citizens, support the policies that make for peace or reject those which do not. We want our own kind of peace, brought about in our own way.”

“Today the predatory state, or the predatory group of states, with power of total destruction, is no more to be tolerated than the predatory individual.”

“True there has been more talk of peace since 1945 than, I should think, at any other time in history. At least we hear more and read more about it because man's words, for good or ill, can now so easily reach the millions.”

“Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe.”

“It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.”

“Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.”

“As a soldier, I survived World War I when most of my comrades did not.”