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IT IS WITH GRATITUDE that I accept the Peace Prize which you are conferring on me today.
Peace in all its components is always endangered; this, I believe, is a fact one must accept. I noted, therefore, the discord that arose over the prize, and over the manner in which it was awarded, with a degree of melancholy and a sense of the irony inherent in these circumstances. It is a disturbance of peace which has pursued me even into my private life.1
Please do not expect loud reproaches. The profession I practice is not a noisy one. As a psychoanalyst I listen, try to understand, and to be a little ahead of my patients in recognizing their conflicts, so that I can help them. To this attitude of cautious observation I shall remain faithful today. You must, nevertheless, not conclude that I am unaware of the enormous amount of strife and injustice in the world, or that I am incapable of strong feelings. What I have been able to learn about the world has given me little admiration for the wisdom of its rulers; and I can well understand the hatred of the oppressed. But will this hatred help to increase the humaneness of future generations? Allow me to speak to you here about a situation which, while geographically remote, is clearly within the range of our participating experience. I hope that our very distance from the disgraceful facts to which