Top 100 Walesa Quotes
#1. Walesa was a national hero, a true icon. The vast majority of Poles didn't believe a word the authorities said. They took everything the official media said about Walesa to be a manipulation by the Communist authorities.
Slawomir Cenckiewicz
#2. What my Republican colleagues often don't understand is that labor is a human-rights issue. I have to remind them Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement brought down the Communist bloc.
Chris Smith
#3. "It all came from there," Lech Walesa said, pointing to a TV when a reporter asked him why communism fell.
Lech Walesa
#4. Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.
Lech Walesa
#5. I belong to the generation of workers who, born in the villages and hamlets of rural Poland, had the opportunity to acquire education and find employment in industry, becoming in the course conscious of their rights and importance in society.
Lech Walesa
#6. I allowed myself to be taken in by the intellectuals. I believed too much in the Polish intellectuals and followed their advice.
Lech Walesa
#7. People always ask me, 'Lech, aren't you afraid of being killed?' And as an answer I shrug my shoulders.
Lech Walesa
#8. I believed it would succeed. It was Polish Solidarity and its victory that put an end to the old era when what mattered were borders and rival blocs.
Lech Walesa
#9. Let the veil of silence fall presently over what happened afterwards. Silence, too, can speak out.
Lech Walesa
#10. The fall of the Berlin Wall makes for nice pictures. But it all started in the shipyards.
Lech Walesa
#11. For now, capitalism is working to produce more money but does not see the people. This problem is getting worse across the world.
Lech Walesa
#12. Lying at the root of the social agreements of 1980 are the courage, sense of responsibility, and the solidarity of the working people. Both sides have then recognized that an accord must be reached if bloodshed is to be prevented.
Lech Walesa
#13. Communists are great capitalists, so there is no threat anymore.
Lech Walesa
#14. I realize that the strivings of the Polish people gave rise, and still do so, to the feelings of understanding and solidarity all over the world.
Lech Walesa
#15. I am overjoyed that I do not need a heart transplant at this time.
Lech Walesa
#16. [Without Pope John Paul II] there would be no end of Communism or at least much later, and the end would have been bloody.
Lech Walesa
#17. Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside all of us.
Lech Walesa
#18. I have always been and will be an enemy of communism, but I love all people.
Lech Walesa
#19. We need to agree on common values for all religions as soon as possible, a kind of secular Ten Commandments on which we will build the world of tomorrow.
Lech Walesa
#20. I believe that any violation of privacy is nothing good.
Lech Walesa
#21. We need a global parliament, a global government and possibly a global ministry for security.
Lech Walesa
#22. I think if I got a bicycle from my father, I should give a car to my son.
Lech Walesa
#23. If there were fish in the lake, fishing would make no sense.
Lech Walesa
#24. Freedom must be gained step by step, slowly. Freedom is a food which must be carefully administered when people are too hungry for it.
Lech Walesa
#25. We must be courageous but also reasonable. The world admires us for walking a tightrope without falling off. It asks us to keep our balance.
Lech Walesa
#26. The sole and basic source of our strength is the solidarity of workers, peasants and the intelligentsia, the solidarity of the nation, the solidarity of people who seek to live in dignity, truth, and in harmony with their conscience.
Lech Walesa
#27. I don't like to look a man in the eye.
Lech Walesa
#28. After the war, Germany fully confessed to all its dirty tricks. It's necessary to is draw a line under the past, even if people did something evil. Until we do, wounds won't heal.
Lech Walesa
#29. One could always do more, faster and cleverer, but democracy has its own rhythm.
Lech Walesa
#31. When I recall my own path of life I cannot but speak of the violence, hatred and lies. A lesson drawn from such experiences, however, was that we can effectively oppose violence only if we ourselves do not resort to it.
Lech Walesa
#32. The people in Poland had to deal with painful reforms.
Lech Walesa
#33. Power is only important as an instrument for service to the powerless.
Lech Walesa
#34. My youth passed at the time of the country's reconstruction from the ruins and ashes of the war in which my nation never bowed to the enemy paying the highest price in the struggle.
Lech Walesa
#35. The defense of our rights and our dignity, as well as efforts never to let ourselves to be overcome by the feeling of hatred - this is the road we have chosen.
Lech Walesa
#36. The world needs leaders of vision instead of leaders on television.
Lech Walesa
#37. I represent the concept that pluralism is essential, union pluralism. I made an oath about this.
Lech Walesa
#38. Democracy is made up of three elements. One is whether the laws support pluralistic principles. The second is whether the people take advantage of these laws. The third element is whether the peoples' wallets are thick enough to benefit from this democracy.
Lech Walesa
#39. Tomorrow there will be no division to Europe and Asia. These are old concepts that would remain only on maps. Everything will be united. Companies will be united. It is a process of structures growing due to the technological progress.
Lech Walesa
#40. When he saw injustice, he wanted to do away with it. He saw communism, and he wanted to put an end to it.
Lech Walesa
#41. The program of our movement stems from the fundamental moral laws and order.
Lech Walesa
#42. We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
Lech Walesa
#43. We have travelled so far in our technical advancements that we are no longer located in our own countries.
Lech Walesa
#44. The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible.
Lech Walesa
#45. Without a single shot we've managed to liberate the world of communism but now there is a need for a global solidarity.
Lech Walesa
#46. I cannot stand for more than half an hour in one place.
Lech Walesa
#47. It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail.
Lech Walesa
#48. Technology helped end communism by bringing in information from the outside.
Lech Walesa
#49. President Lech Kaczynski is not at all active in Poland and his image abroad leaves a lot to be desired.
Lech Walesa
#50. Now is the era of intellect, information and the Internet.
Lech Walesa
#51. We were hoping Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America. That failed.
Lech Walesa
#52. You should go to the polls, organize yourself. But once lawmakers are chosen, they must be respected.
Lech Walesa
#54. Up to the 20th century, we can say that this whole period was an Earth epoch, 'Earth' meaning the riches of the earth, simple physical work. That is why there were wars, the movement of frontiers, war over riches.
Lech Walesa
#55. Life creates new heroes, and new heroes always find it easiest to beat up on the previous heroes.
Lech Walesa
#56. This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity.
Lech Walesa
#57. My struggle led to the reunification of Germany and the creation of the state of Europe. We destroyed the borders; globalisation is on the horizon.
Lech Walesa
#58. I made the right decisions, I set everything on the right course, the reforms are going in the right direction.
Lech Walesa
#59. I'm a man of faith. I only fear God, and my wife - sometimes.
Lech Walesa
#60. When I was fighting communism, there was rapid development of satellite television and cell phones, and communism, to survive, would have to block all these information devices.
Lech Walesa
#61. I don't have regrets I didn't spend more time with my family because I've lived my life to the full, and you can't look back in regret.
Lech Walesa
#62. As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs, to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world.
Lech Walesa
#63. No minority should climb all over the majority.
Lech Walesa
#64. The hope of the nation which throughout the nineteenth century had not for a moment reconciled itself with the loss of independence, and fighting for its own freedom, fought at the same time for the freedom of other nations.
Lech Walesa
#65. Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time.
Lech Walesa
#66. Our firm conviction that ours is a just cause and that we must find a peaceful way to attain our goals gave us the strength and the awareness of the limits beyond which we must not go.
Lech Walesa
#67. There is something of the warrior in me.
Lech Walesa
#68. He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed.
Lech Walesa
#69. I most sincerely wish that the world in which we live be free from the threat of a nuclear holocaust and from the ruinous arms race. It is my cherished desire that peace be not separated from freedom which is the right of every nation. This I desire and for this I pray.
Lech Walesa
#70. My most ardent desire is that my country will recapture its historic opportunity for a peaceful evolution and that Poland will prove to the world that even the most complex situations can be solved by a dialogue and not by force.
Lech Walesa
#71. You have riches and freedom here but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers, why don't you use them in the search for love?
Lech Walesa
#72. I belong to a nation which over the past centuries has experienced many hardships and reverses. The world reacted with silence or with mere sympathy when Polish frontiers were crossed by invading armies and the sovereign state had to succumb to brutal force.
Lech Walesa
#73. I decided to get to know my opponents and their arguments.
Lech Walesa
#74. Obviously people want social calm, but if you do not let clever and ingenious people to participate, obviously there must be some dormant volcano that will erupt, sooner or later.
Lech Walesa
#76. Communism in Cuba will collapse sooner or later because you can't control the free flow of information. Communism prevents organizations from developing by stopping the flow of information. The system is based on police and listening devices and triggers the worst characteristics in humans.
Lech Walesa
#77. Freedom may be the soul of humanity, but often you have to struggle to prove it.
Lech Walesa
#78. There should be a left leg and a right leg. And I'll be in between
Lech Walesa
#79. The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.
Lech Walesa
#80. My country is in the grips of a major economic crisis. This is causing dramatic consequences for the very existence of Polish families. A permanent economic crisis in Poland may also have serious repercussions for Europe. Thus, Poland ought to be helped and deserves help.
Lech Walesa
#81. If once again Germany destabilizes Europe, then Germany will be not be divided again, but wiped off the map. East and West have the necessary technology in order to enforce this verdict. If Germany begins again, there is no other solution.
Lech Walesa
#82. My character and personality is today and tomorrow; I do not work well remembering further back.
Lech Walesa
#83. Building democracy as an imposition from abroad is a form of imperialism.
Lech Walesa
#84. I want to light the lights of patriotism.
Lech Walesa
#85. I must tell you that the supply of words on the world market is plentiful, but the demand is falling.
Lech Walesa
#86. Irrespective of todays judgment and the price we had to pay in this generation, we were able to close an epoch of divisions, different blocs and borders, opening the way for an era of globalization.
Lech Walesa
#87. I'm lazy. But it's the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn't like walking or carrying things.
Lech Walesa
#89. What until then seemed impossible to achieve has become a fact of life. We have won the right to association in trade unions independent from the authorities, founded and shaped by the working people themselves.
Lech Walesa
#90. Poles finished communism, and Great Britain profited significantly from this.
Lech Walesa
#91. This is the moment of your defeat; you have just put in the last nails in the coffin of communism.
Lech Walesa
#92. Our national history has so often filled us with bitterness and the feeling of helplessness.
Lech Walesa
#94. I got politics and economics moving and then others took over.
Lech Walesa
#96. In many parts of the world the people are searching for a solution which would link the two basic values: peace and justice. The two are like bread and salt for mankind.
Lech Walesa
#97. I hope to work harder than ever to help people around the world.
Lech Walesa
#98. I can't imagine the right wing trying to unite without my participation.
Lech Walesa
#99. I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.
Lech Walesa
#100. Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically. The system suppresses individual initiative, and the 21st century is all about individualism and freedom. The development of technology supported these directions.
Lech Walesa
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