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.
Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, anti-communist dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. His 1990 election made him the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1922 and the first Polish president chosen by popular vote.
An electrician by trade, he became a trade-union activist while working at the Lenin Shipyard, now the Gdańsk Shipyard, and was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976 and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in the negotiations that produced the Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he co-founded the Solidarity trade union. As leader of Solidarity he led a pro-democratic effort that ended Communist rule in Poland in 1989.
An electrician by trade, he became a trade-union activist while working at the Lenin Shipyard, now the Gdańsk Shipyard, and was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976 and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in the negotiations that produced the Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he co-founded the Solidarity trade union. As leader of Solidarity he led a pro-democratic effort that ended Communist rule in Poland in 1989.
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?
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.
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.
He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed.
Authority must be respected and chosen wisely.
I'm a man of faith. I only fear God, and my wife - sometimes.
In myself I am nothing. It all comes from God and the Virgin Mary.
We were hoping Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America. That failed.