Alva Myrdal, a distinguished Swedish diplomat and politician, dedicated her life to promoting disarmament, gender equality, and social justice on the global stage. As a key architect of Sweden's welfare state and a driving force behind the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Myrdal's visionary leadership continues to inspire peace-building efforts worldwide.
"Many countries persecute their own citizens and intern them in prisons or concentration camps. Oppression is becoming more and more a part of the systems."
"The inventions and the great discoveries have opened up whole continents to reciprocal communication and interchange, provided we are willing."
"I personally believe that those who are leaders with political power over the world will be forced some day, sooner or later, to give way to common sense and the will of the people."
"It is of the greatest importance that people and governments in many more countries than ours should realize that it is more dangerous to have access to nuclear arms than not to possess them."
"The world generally speaking is now drifting on a more and more devastating course towards the absurd target of extermination - or rather, to be more exact - of the northern hemisphere's towns, fields, and the people who have developed our civilization."
"A great amount has been talked and written about what constitutes a sufficient balance and what really is meant by the concepts of "balance" and "deterrence"."
"First and foremost arms are tools in the service of rival nations, pointing at the possibility of a future war."
"The economic and political roots of the conflicts are too strong for us to pretend to create a lasting state of harmonious understanding between men."
"The age in which we live can only be characterized as one of barbarism. Our civilization is in the process not only of being militarized, but also being brutalized."
"Nobel was a genuine friend of peace. He even went so far as to believe that he had invented a tool of destruction, dynamite, which would make war so senseless that it would become impossible. He was wrong."
"We can hope that men will understand that the interest of all are the same, that hope lies in cooperation. We can then perhaps keep PEACE."
"I have always regarded global development as a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Not to be simplified as a struggle between Jesus and Satan, since I do not consider that the process is restricted to our own sphere of culture."