Words matter. These are the best Czechoslovakia Quotes from famous people such as Adam Michnik, Nargis Fakhri, Christo, Milos Forman, Roger Morris, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
In Czechoslovakia in 1968, communist reformers appealed to democratic ideals that were deeply rooted in the country’s pre-second world war past.
My mum was born in the former Czechoslovakia, and even though my grandparents weren’t wealthy, they were aristocrats in their time.
I escaped from my home country, Bulgaria, to Czechoslovakia and then to the West.
Definitely, it would be foolish to try and make my Czech films here in America, as foolish as it is when some Czech filmmakers try to make movies of America in Czechoslovakia.
Bob Gates is really emblematic of the modern CIA. He joins it in 1968, just a day before the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. And, of course, he rises very quickly. In less than six years, he’s on the National Security Council staff, at the closing weeks of Richard Nixon’s presidency and then on into Gerald Ford.
But bread is different. I come from Czechoslovakia, where we eat lots of it, so it’s hard to say no. I can’t even have one piece, because when I start, I don’t stop.
I call on the Western democracies and primarily on the leader of the free world, the United States: Do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when enlightened European democracies decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a convenient temporary solution… Israel will not be Czechoslovakia.
If I hadn’t left Czechoslovakia, I would have been dead.
Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the ’30s, East Germany in the ’50s, Czechoslovakia in the ’60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the ’70s, China in the ’80s and ’90s – all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.
I just happen to know quite a lot of what happened in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and the fall of Communism.
I am just sorry my own mother had to live under that regime for most of her life. I was lucky. I got out and, 14 years later, Czechoslovakia became a free country. So I feel anger, even fury, at this bloody system that ruined so many people’s lives for no reason whatsoever.
You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler.
There was a joke in Czechoslovakia: The Communist Party dance, it’s one step forward, two steps backward, and everyone is still clapping.
I was in Vienna in August 1968 for a meeting of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, of which I was co-founder, and we wanted a 20th country to join. They asked for a volunteer to go to Prague to get Czechoslovakia to do it, and my hand always goes up first.
If the U.S. has its Vietnam… the Soviet Union has its Czechoslovakia. If the U.S. has its blacks and chicanos, then the Soviets have their Jews.
My parents were of the generation who thought they were the children of a free Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in central Europe.
A modern hero is very ambiguous. I went through some very rough times in Czechoslovakia – the occupation by the Germans at the end of the war. We had people going against their tanks with brooms. Are they nuts, or are they heroes?
By the time I returned to Czechoslovakia, I had an understanding of the principles of the market.
In Czechoslovakia, we consider Kafka a very funny man. A humorist.
History never repeats, but there are the obvious precedents that pessimists can reach for: Sarajevo, 1914; the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, 1938. But equally relevant might be the tragically meaningless guarantees Britain extended to Poland in 1939.
Through the inspiration of Vaclav’s words, the courage of his dissidence and the integrity of his leadership, Czechoslovakia successfully transitioned from an authoritarian state to a free democracy at the heart of Europe.
Because of my parents’ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.
