Weight of words
A curated archive of speeches that shaped the posture of states, the fate of alliances, and the international order.
Speech is an instrument of state. Monarchs, presidents, revolutionaries, and secretaries-general have used the set-piece address to declare war and to sue for peace, to bind allies and to unsettle them, to claim legitimacy and to deny it to others. This is a curated archive of such speeches, from Elizabeth I at Tilbury to the present day, chosen for their bearing on the posture of states, the shape of alliances, and the international order.
Each is presented from the record: the speaker, the occasion, and the text as delivered or as reliably transcribed. Where a speech was not given in English or French, the original is offered alongside a translation. The Centre supplies context, not commentary, and leaves the words to stand.
10 December 2024
The deaths I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths
Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its decades of work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Nobel lecture was delivered in Oslo on 10 December 2024 by Terumi Tanaka, one of the confederation's three co-chairpersons and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, where he was thirteen years old and about three kilometres from ground zero on 9 August 1945. He recalled losing five relatives to a single bomb, set that memory against the twelve thousand nuclear warheads still held today, and appealed for the elimination of nuclear weapons while survivors remain to testify. The full lecture is copyright of the Nobel Foundation, which requires its consent for republication other than in summary; the text shown here is a summary with short quotations, and the complete lecture is available from the official source and archived copy linked below.
This entry presents an editorial summary with short quotations. The full lecture remains under copyright of the Nobel Foundation; the complete text is available from the official source and archived copy linked with this record.
Speaking on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Terumi Tanaka recounted the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, which he survived at the age of thirteen. Three days later he went in search of relatives living near the hypocentre and found them dead or dying; a single bomb took five of his family. Of what he saw on that walk through the ruins, he said:
The deaths I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths.
He then turned from memory to the present, noting that twelve thousand nuclear warheads remain on earth, four thousand of them ready for immediate launch, and that the nuclear taboo his movement helped build is now under threat. Warning that the scale of harm would be many times that of 1945, he told his audience:
Any one of you could become either a victim or a perpetrator, at any time.
He appealed to people everywhere to press their governments to eliminate nuclear weapons while the last survivors remain to bear witness.
Historical record. The Centre neither holds nor claims any copyright in these speeches. They are gathered and reproduced here as a historical record from public and archival sources. A rights holder who wishes a speech removed, or aligned to an authorized source, may request this through our contact page.