“No future, however, can be built on despair, distrust, hatred, and envy.”
Fridtjof Nansen delivered his Nobel lecture at the University of Oslo on December 19, 1922, against the background of Europe’s postwar suffering. The Norwegian humanitarian discussed hunger, displacement, and the damage left by conflict. In the translated passage quoted here, he identifies destructive emotions that cannot provide the foundations for recovery. The surrounding argument turns toward understanding people’s circumstances and toward practical relief. His appeal was not that suffering should be forgotten. It was that rebuilding required a different direction from the hostility and suspicion that prolonged division. The quotation connects political relationships with the possibility of ordinary people recovering their lives.
There is a difference between acknowledging despair and allowing despair to determine every public choice. People facing loss may have sound reasons to distrust institutions that failed them. A demand for optimism can become evasive when it ignores that history. Nansen’s sentence is more useful when read as a challenge to those who hold responsibility: what actions could make confidence reasonable again? Promises alone are unlikely to suffice. Fair procedures, reliable assistance, and evidence that commitments will be honored can begin to change the conditions under which distrust developed. Trust becomes a consequence of conduct rather than an instruction imposed on the injured.
Hatred and envy also simplify political problems by providing an object to blame. They can offer a sense of belonging, but that belonging may depend on keeping another group outside the circle of concern. Cooperation then becomes harder precisely when common work is most necessary. A humanitarian approach asks whose needs are unmet and what arrangements can address them without demanding shared identity or agreement on every issue. Such questions do not remove conflicts of interest. They make room for limited, practical cooperation despite those conflicts, allowing people to solve immediate problems without first settling every historical grievance.
The quotation remains relevant wherever public debate treats suspicion as wisdom and hostility as proof of conviction. Its alternative requires more than agreeable language. Institutions must show that they can protect dignity, correct mistakes, and deliver the help they promise. Citizens and leaders can then distinguish warranted criticism from habits that prevent any improvement from being recognized. Nansen’s thought invites readers to examine the foundations they are building: whether their political actions expand possibilities for shared life or repeatedly narrow them. A better future cannot be guaranteed, but it becomes more plausible when conduct gives people a reason to work toward it.
Nansen spoke at the University of Oslo on December 19, 1922. His Nobel lecture addressed suffering in Europe after the First World War and connected recovery with understanding and practical humanitarian work.
The English quotation is a translation of the Norwegian lecture. UNHCR later recalled the same warning in its Nansen Refugee Award programme, using a shortened version that omits the word however.
The sentence rejects destructive emotions as a foundation for rebuilding. It does not imply that people should suppress grief or trust authorities regardless of experience.
A productive reading asks what behavior could make trust deserved. That shifts responsibility toward reliable commitments, practical support, and attention to circumstances.
Relief work can make cooperation possible between people who disagree about much else. Meeting immediate needs creates opportunities for confidence that abstract declarations may not provide.
Modern political discussion can apply the quotation by examining whether its habits open paths to shared problem-solving. Criticism remains necessary, but it should leave room for evidence of improvement.
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