The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.
ADAM MICHNIKThe real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.
More Adam Michnik Quotes
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Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become.
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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.
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America needed our help, and we had to give it.
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Politics and ethics belong to different worlds.
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We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.
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In a democracy, the government is a reflection of society because people are elected.
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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.
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After the fall of communism in Poland, we had a post-communist as president for two terms: Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was very good. He brought Poland into NATO and the European Union.
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Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.
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We still have politicians who strive for a different type of country: Kaczynski as well as Orbán in Hungary.
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I believe that a man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly.
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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.
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Both men have an authoritarian idea of government; democracy is merely a façade.
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A part of society in our countries would still prefer an authoritarian regime today. These are people with the mentality of Homo sovieticus. But they also exist in France – just think of Le Pen – and even in Finland and Sweden.
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Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality.
ADAM MICHNIK