Lech Walesa Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The world needs leaders of vision instead of leaders on television.

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

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

Words are plentiful; deeds are precious.

Deep faith eliminates fear.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

We need a global parliament, a global government and possibly a global ministry for security.

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.

Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically.

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

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

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?

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

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.

There is something of the warrior in me.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Now is the era of intellect, information and the Internet.

I had my own battle tactics.

I believe that any violation of privacy is nothing good.

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.

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.

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

I want to light the lights of patriotism.

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.

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.