Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai on December 10, 2014. He's the only Indian (i.e. born in India, and holding an Indian passport) to have won a Nobel Prize since Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998. Here are some quotes from the speech he gave in Oslo during the prize-giving ceremony.
"Let’s walk together. In the pursuit of global progress, not a single person should be left out or left behind in any corner of the world, from East to West, from South to North."
"Let’s speak together, let our minds come together! Learning from the experiences of our ancestors, let us together create knowledge for all that benefits all."
"I recall how thousands of times, I have been liberated, each time I have freed a child from slavery. In the first smile of freedom on their beautiful faces, I see the Gods smiling."
"I represent here the sound of silence. The cry of innocence. And, the face of invisibility. I have come here to share the voices and dreams of our children, our children, because they are all our children."
"Twenty years ago, in the foothills of the Himalayas, I met a small, skinny boy. He asked me: 'Is the world so poor that it cannot give me a toy and a book, instead of forcing me to take a tool or gun?'"
"There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children."
"The single aim of my life is that every child is:
free to be a child,
free to grow and develop,
free to eat, sleep, see daylight,
free to laugh and cry,
free to play,
free to learn, free to go to school, and above all, free to dream."
"I refuse to accept that the world is so poor, when just one week of global spending on armies is enough to bring all of our children into classrooms."
"I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom."
"Friends, the biggest crisis knocking on the doors of humanity today is intolerance."
"I am afraid that the day is not far when the cumulative result of this failure will culminate in unprecedented violence that will be suicidal for humankind. Yet, young people like Malala, are rising up everywhere and choosing peace over violence, tolerance over extremism, and courage over fear."
"Solutions are not found only in the deliberations in conferences and prescriptions from a distance. They lie in small groups and local organisations and individuals, who confront the problem every day, even if they remain unrecognised and unknown to the world."
"Let us inculcate and transform the individuals’ compassion into a global movement. Let us globalise compassion. Not passive compassion, but transformative compassion that leads to justice, equality, and freedom."
"Whose children are they who stitch footballs, yet have never played with one? They are our children. Whose children are they who mine stones and minerals? They are our children. Whose children are they who harvest cocoa, yet do not know the taste of a chocolate? They are all our children."
"We need collective actions with a sense of urgency. Every single minute matters, every single child matters, every single childhood matters."
"I challenge the passivity and pessimism surrounding our children. I challenge this culture of silence, this culture of neutrality."
"My dear sisters and brothers, may I ask you to close your eyes and put your hand close to your heart for a moment? Can you feel the child inside you? Now, listen to this child. I am sure you can!"
"Let us march from darkness to light. Let us march from mortality to divinity. Let us march!"