By chance I hit on Pinter's astonishingly intense 2005 Nobel Lecture, whilst browsing the elegantly and usably organised archive of lectures, acceptance speeches, and so on, given by Nobel prize winners. After a gripping description of Pinter's process of writing plays, and a long discourse on US foreign policy, the closing sentences are:
"I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man."
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