Lech Walesa famous quotes

We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.
-- Lech Walesa

#Priceless

It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail.
-- Lech Walesa

#Frustration #Frustrated #Bitterness

Deep faith eliminates fear.
-- Lech Walesa

#Faith #Fear

Words are plentiful; deeds are precious.
-- Lech Walesa

#Greatness #Deeds

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

#Truth #People #Dignity

We respect the dignity and the rights of every man and every nation. The path to a brighter future of the world leads through honest reconciliation of the conflicting interests and not through hatred and bloodshed. To follow that path means to enhance the moral power of the all-embracing idea of human solidarity.
-- Lech Walesa

#Respect #Future #Mean

There is something of the warrior in me.
-- Lech Walesa

#Warrior

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

#Goal #Peaceful #Limits

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

#Two #People #Justice

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

#Fall #Balance #World

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

#Funny #Science #Cycling

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

#Technology #Development #Individualism

Freedom may be the soul of humanity, but often you have to struggle to prove it.
-- Lech Walesa

#Freedom #Struggle #Soul

I got politics and economics moving and then others took over.
-- Lech Walesa

#Moving #Politics #Economics

I had my own battle tactics.
-- Lech Walesa

#Battle #Tactics

I hope to work harder than ever to help people around the world.
-- Lech Walesa

#People #World #Helping

I made the right decisions, I set everything on the right course, the reforms are going in the right direction.
-- Lech Walesa

#Decision #Reform #Made

I must tell you that the supply of words on the world market is plentiful, but the demand is falling.
-- Lech Walesa

#Falling In Love #Historical #World

In myself I am nothing. It all comes from God and the Virgin Mary.
-- Lech Walesa

#Mary #Virgins #Virgin Mary

My health is very much improved.
-- Lech Walesa

I think if I got a bicycle from my father, I should give a car to my son.
-- Lech Walesa

#Father #Son #Thinking

Communists are great capitalists, so there is no threat anymore.
-- Lech Walesa

#Communist #Threat #Capitalist

Capitalism is in crisis.
-- Lech Walesa

#Crisis #Capitalism

"It all came from there," Lech Walesa said, pointing to a TV when a reporter asked him why communism fell.
-- Lech Walesa

#Television #Tvs #Communism

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

#Fighting #Loss #Independence

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

#Faith #Use #Riches

I can't imagine the right wing trying to unite without my participation.
-- Lech Walesa

#Wings #Trying #Imagine

I am happy that Poland is returning to the road of pluralism and democracy.
-- Lech Walesa

#Democracy #Pluralism #Poland

The fall of the Berlin Wall makes for nice pictures. But it all started in the shipyards.
-- Lech Walesa

#Wall #Nice #Fall

Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time.
-- Lech Walesa

#Long #Dictator #Should

Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.
-- Lech Walesa

#Authority #Chosen

Our national history has so often filled us with bitterness and the feeling of helplessness.
-- Lech Walesa

#Feelings #Bitterness #Filled

I have always been and will be an enemy of communism, but I love all people.
-- Lech Walesa

#People #Enemy #Communism

I want to light the lights of patriotism.
-- Lech Walesa

#Light #Patriotism #Want

He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed.
-- Lech Walesa

#Hands #Historical #Wheels

Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically.
-- Lech Walesa

#Communism

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

#Race #Holocaust #Desire

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

#Responsibility #Fate #Doe

I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.
-- Lech Walesa

#Knees #Prudence

I believe that any violation of privacy is nothing good.
-- Lech Walesa

#Believe #Privacy #I Believe

I am overjoyed that I do not need a heart transplant at this time.
-- Lech Walesa

#Heart #Needs #Overjoyed

I have a vision, and I know I'm right.
-- Lech Walesa

#Vision

Let the veil of silence fall presently over what happened afterwards. Silence, too, can speak out.
-- Lech Walesa

#Fall #Silence #Veils

I don't like to look a man in the eye.
-- Lech Walesa

#Eye #Men #Looks

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

#Army #Past #Silence

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

#People #Steps #Hungry

I allowed myself to be taken in by the intellectuals. I believed too much in the Polish intellectuals and followed their advice.
-- Lech Walesa

#Taken #Advice #Too Much

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

#Yield #People #Violence

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

#People #Feelings #Understanding

Everyone wants a voice in human freedom. There's a fire burning inside all of us.
-- Lech Walesa

#Fire #Voice #Burning

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

#War #Saws #Injustice

The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope.
-- Lech Walesa

#Doubt #United States #World

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

#Law #People #Support

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

#Needs #World #Communism

There should be a left leg and a right leg. And I'll be in between
-- Lech Walesa

#Legs #Should

If there were fish in the lake, fishing would make no sense.
-- Lech Walesa

#Lakes #Fishing #Fishes

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

#Clever #Volcanoes #People

Power is only important as an instrument for service to the powerless.
-- Lech Walesa

#Important #Instruments #Powerless

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

#People #Doe #World

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

#Rights #Effort #Hatred

Now is the era of intellect, information and the Internet.
-- Lech Walesa

#Information #Eras #Internet

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

#War #Way #Nuclear

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

#Country #Opportunity #Peaceful

The program of our movement stems from the fundamental moral laws and order.
-- Lech Walesa

#Order #Law #Fundamentals

You should go to the polls, organize yourself. But once lawmakers are chosen, they must be respected.
-- Lech Walesa

#Lawmakers #Should #Polls

The people in Poland had to deal with painful reforms.
-- Lech Walesa

#People #Reform #Painful

One could always do more, faster and cleverer, but democracy has its own rhythm.
-- Lech Walesa

#Democracy #Faster #Rhythm

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

#Victory #Borders #Rivals

This is the moment of your defeat; you have just put in the last nails in the coffin of communism.
-- Lech Walesa

#War #Lasts #Nails

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

#Education #Opportunity #Rights

I use many different gadgets connected with computers; I use PCs, laptops and a Palm Pilot. I also use the Internet to visit websites, especially within Polish-language Internet. I usually go to political discussion groups and sites - of course, as I use my real name, people never believe that they are chatting with me!
-- Lech Walesa

#Real #Believe #Names

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

#Courage #Lying #Responsibility

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

#Country #Europe #May

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

#Country #War #Struggle

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

#Summer #Rights #People

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

#Lying #Life Lesson #Hatred

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

#Block #Fighting #Phones

I only fear God, and my wife - sometimes.
-- Lech Walesa

#Wife #Sometimes #My Wife

President Lech Kaczynski is not at all active in Poland and his image abroad leaves a lot to be desired.
-- Lech Walesa

#President #Poland #Active

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

#This Generation #Different #Borders

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

#Independent #People #Unions