Top 60 Lech Walesa Quotes

We have travelled so far in our technical advancements that we are no longer located in our own countries.

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

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 can’t imagine the right wing trying to unite without my participation.

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

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

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

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.

Poles finished communism, and Great Britain profited significantly from this.

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

Life creates new heroes, and new heroes always find it easiest to beat up on the previous heroes.

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.

My character and personality is today and tomorrow; I do not work well remembering further back.

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.

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

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.

For now, capitalism is working to produce more money but does not see the people. This problem is getting worse across the world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I had my own battle tactics.

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

I cannot stand for more than half an hour in one place.

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.

Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically.

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.

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.

Freedom must be gained step by step, slowly. Freedom is a food which must be carefully administered when people are too hungry for it.

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.

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.

People are most important.

I’m a man of faith. I only fear God, and my wife – sometimes.

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.

We were hoping Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America. That failed.

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.

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

I don’t like to look a man in the eye.

There is something of the warrior in me.

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.

People always ask me, ‘Lech, aren’t you afraid of being killed?’ And as an answer I shrug my shoulders.

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

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.

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

The people in Poland had to deal with painful reforms.

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

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 decided to get to know my opponents and their arguments.

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.

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.

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

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

The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.

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

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

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.

My health is very much improved.