If each of us is to feel that he or she is valued, this calls for more than public funding.

A person's worth is quite independent of their usefulness to society.

Human dignity is independent of national borders. We must always defend the interests of the poor and the persecuted in other countries.

We must never relinquish the vision of a humane society and a humane world.

We have a good life when we manage to live with both satisfied and unsatisfied needs, when we are not obsessed by what is beyond our reach.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

If we dare to come closer to our fellow human beings, we will be able to see and understand them better.