Adam Michnik Quotes

Why am I such a Euro-enthusiast? Because I knew it was an anchor of democracy.

In Czechoslovakia in 1968, communist reformers appealed to democratic ideals that were deeply rooted in the country's pre-second world war past.

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

An ethical action, like an unethical action, is usually analyzed by politicians purely in pragmatic terms.

The ethics of journalism are one thing. Another thing is the ethics of business.

Politics and ethics belong to different worlds.

Poland is an ally of the United States of America. It was our duty to show that we are a reliable, loyal, and predictable ally. America needed our help, and we had to give it.

France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.

I think it's always dangerous to make political arguments in a religiously ideological way. And it's very dangerous to treat as traitors to the American nation those who think differently.

The Polish freedom movement of 1968 lost its confrontation with police violence; the Prague Spring was crushed by the armies of five Warsaw Pact members. But in both countries, 1968 gave birth to a new political consciousness.

If you're powerful, you are much more likely to be blind and deaf to signals from outside.

I can't remember any text of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence; I'm not an idiot.

For those of us imprisoned in Poland, the Prague Spring was a harbinger of hope.

Pacifism as a mass movement aims to avoid suffering; pacifists often say that no cause is worth suffering or dying for. The ethos of Solidarity is based on an opposite premise - that there are causes worth suffering and dying for.

I think you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.

The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.

Politics is the art of achieving political goals - of achieving what is possible in a given situation - that is, in a situation that has its conditions and its limits.

Politics is the art of realizing what there is to realize.

Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world - even if it is conservative and disagreeable - and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green. This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate.

I believe that a man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly.

I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself. Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11.

The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist party members and others who wanted to bring about 'socialism with a human face.'