Lech Walesa Quotes

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

It is not difficult to censor foreign news. What is difficult today is to censor one's own thoughts, To sit by and see the blind man On the sightless horse, riding into the bottomless abyss.

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

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.

Deep faith eliminates fear.

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.

Without a single shot we've managed to liberate the world of communism but now there is a need for a global solidarity.

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.

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.

I have a vision, and I know I'm right.

I got politics and economics moving and then others took over.

[Without Pope John Paul II] there would be no end of Communism or at least much later, and the end would have been bloody.

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

Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.

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?

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.

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.

I want to light the lights of patriotism.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically.

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

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.

He who once became aware of the power of Solidarity and who breathed the air of freedom will not be crushed.

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.

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

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

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.

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

My health is very much improved.