Malala Yousafzai: If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why?

If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why?

Recorded Malala Yousafzai said elsewhere, not written here

Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?

Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 10 December 2014 source ↗

2 versions

Earlier wording is kept rather than replaced. This is the record of how the answer moved, not evidence that it should not have.

Version 1 superseded 28 Aug 2026

Why is it that countries which we call strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?
Version 2 Current

Corrected against the source.

Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?

Others on this question

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Martin Luther King Jr. Baptist minister; President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1957–1968

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.

Recorded Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, 4 February 1968 source ↗

Ahmed Zewail Chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1999

At the age of 21, as a Moeid, I believed that behind every universal phenomenon there must be beauty and simplicity in its description. This belief remains true today.

Recorded Laureate-written autobiography for Les Prix Nobel, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 December 1999 source ↗

Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2017–2023; Leader of the Labour Party 2017–2023

We are the richer for our difference, and poorer for our division. Through genuine debate and dialogue, through rebuilding trust in information and one another, through empathy – let us reclaim the space in between.

Recorded Tercentenary Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Magazine, 26 May 2022 source ↗

Eleanor Roosevelt First Lady of the United States 1933–1945; United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly 1945–1952; Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights 1946–1951