Lech Walesa Quotes (51 Quotes)


    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

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


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

    Finally we have an independent union under our own administration. We now have the right to strike and we are going to demand more rights soon.

    The supply of words in the world market is plentiful but the demand is falling. Let deeds follow words now.

    He did not tell us to make a revolution, he did not call for a coup, but he was so suggestive that we all had to define ourselves. The Polish nation and many other nations awoke.

    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.

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

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

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

    When there aren't any fish in the sea, a crawfish can pass off for a fish. I tried to choose as wisely as I could, given the line-up, which was not to my liking. Still, if you can't get what you want, you make do with what you have.

    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.

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

    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.

    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.

    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.

    No one has the least doubt that you are the economic leader and the military leader to the world, but I have heard a lot of doubts regarding the moral and political leadership of the United States.

    From these broadcasting stations we gleaned our lessons of independent thinking and solidarity action.


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

    Every drop of blood causes suffering for the Holy Father,

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

    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.

    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.

    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.

    The nation has made its choice. This is what they have now.

    At that time, I tried to control enthusiasm and streamline it in the right direction. Today I only try to share my experience, pass it on and do something good for the world.

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

    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?

    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.

    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.

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

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

    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.

    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.

    Irrespective of today's 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.

    I knew right from the start that those who carried me on their shoulders will hurl stones at me one day. How was I to tell the workers 'now you will all be jobless' But we had no choice.

    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.

    Why did we do all of it To launch a new epoch, one without divisions. Without one shot, our generation was able to do it.

    The Civic Platform would have had a better chance, because they are more sensible people. I hope I'm wrong.

    It takes really a long while for people to learn to take advantage of (democracy). So the legal framework of democracy can function everywhere. But as we say in Poland, it's hard to make a bull move unless it really wants to.

    Communism fit Poland like a horse's saddle on a pig.

    Words are plentiful, but deeds are precious.

    It all began after a Pole became the pope. His words awakened the Polish nation and other nations followed.

    Without him there would be no end of communism or at least it would have happened much later, and the end would have been bloody,

    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.

    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.


    More Lech Walesa Quotations (Based on Topics)


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