Poland's Most Quoted

Quotes seem to be quite popular things (in some languages at any rate).

The Bible - probably the most quoted book in the Western World
Confucius - Well quoted around the world, not only in China.
Voltaire, Goethe, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Winston Churchill, Murray Walker...

Who in THE POLISH LANGUAGE gets quoted a lot?
Give examples and translations.

I will be awarding points, and points mean prizes.
What do points mean?

Poland's former president, Lech Wałęsa: "Jestem za, a nawet przeciw."
Renata Beger: "Lubię seks jak koń owies."
Leszek Miller: "Mężczyznę poznaje się nie po tym jak zaczyna, ale jak kończy."

These are my absolute favorites LOL

Pilsudski: "to want to, is to be able to"
In Italy it translates "volere è potere" and a lot of people say it every day, i didn't know it was a Pilsudki's quote before i started to read something about him

You often find with quotations, that they go back further than the person who takes the credit for saying it, but that the person who does take the credit usually deserves it.


Nie rozumiem.


Mysle ze rozumiem!


How is this said in Polish? It's all well and good to have an Italian translation. Did Pilsudski speak Italian?
Lambordzini!

PRIZES!

I can't find the polish version :/ but it should be in wikiquote somewhere, i saw it a lot of time ago...
i wrote italian translation because it's a really popular quote in Italy, i don't know if it is in english-speaking countries as well :P

In Polish that would be: " Chcieć to móc."

It makes me think of a saying we have in Poland: there are more and less equal among the equals (są równi i równiejsi)

Isn't that a paraphrase of a sentence from Orwell's "Animal Farm"?

Something by J. Tuwim:

Thou shall not covet your neighbour’s wife in vain

which is... in Polish?

Nie pożądaj żony bliźniego swego nadaremno.

Dunno who started these quasi-quotes, but during the commie period a pseudo-Decalogue circulated stating ia:
Nie kradnij mienia państwowego - ci ze Wschodu są od tego. (Thou shalt not steal state porperty -- that's the specialtiy of the blokes from the East).

Nie pożądaj żony bliźniego swego. Nie ugotuje ci nic lepszego, bo nie ma z czego. (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, because she can't cook any better without any ingredients to work with).

In Polish these rhyme and are far more catchy.

Besides the Bible, whcih is an obvious source, 19th-century Romantic bard Adam Mickiewicz is credited with a number of sayings. These include:
Cudze chwalicie własnego nie znacie, sami nie wiecie, co posiadacie.
(You praise that of others and say it is best, but fail to cherish what you possess.)
Co Francuz wymyśli Polak polubi. (What the Frenchman thinks up, the Pole falls in love with -- about the Polish tendency to ape foreign ways...today more applicable to American pop culture)

Tylko pod krzyżem, tylko pod tym znakiem, Polska jest Polską a Polak Polakiem.
(Only under the cross [Chrsitianity] can Poland be Poland and a Pole -- a Pole.
Miłość do metryki nie zagląda. (Love is not guided by birth certifcates, ie one can fall in love at any age).

I think this one is by Stanislaw Jachowicz.
I never saw the word in bold in this saying but rather "swego".

Aliena laudatis, vestra ignoratis - I don't know who said that, but I think it wasn't Mickiewicz or Jachowicz.

A few quotes in popular use:

Gombrowicz:
Koniec i bomba, a kto czytał ten trąba!
(a nonsense rhyme saying it's the end and who read the book is a fool)
Słowacki wielkim poetą był.
(Słowacki is a great poet - sentence used to satirize claims that are supposed to be accepted without any arguments supporting them )

Also the author of many expressions in common use: "dorabiać komuś gębę", "upupiać" - quite complicated phenomena, so I don't feel like defining them today.

Mickiewicz:
"Czucie i wiara silniej mówi do mnie niż mędrca szkiełko i oko" - Feeling and faith speak stronger to me than a wiseman's glass and eye.

"Glass and eye" - used commonly as a metaphor of scientific thinking

"Ciemno wszędzie
Głucho wszędzie
Co to będzie?
Co to będzie?"
"Dark everywhere, quiet everywhere, what's gonna happen?"

Nietzche:
Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.
In Poland known as: Co mnie nie zabije, to mnie wzmocni.

Also many film quotes are in popular use:
Seksmisja:
"Kobieta mnie bije.." - A woman is beating me...
"Ciemność, widzę ciemność, ciemność widzę." - darkness, I see darkness, darkness I see
"Kopernik była kobietą!" - Copernicus was a woman.
"Hej! Nasi tu byli!" - Hey! Ours were here!
"Żeby facet nie mógł z gołą babą w windzie..." - [it's horrible] that a guy can't do it with a naked woman in a lift....

Rejs:
"W tak pięknych okolicznościach przyrody... " - In so beautiful circumstances of the nature
"I kto za to płaci? Pani płaci, Pan płaci.. Społeczeństwo." - And who pays for it? You pay, madam, you pay, sir. The society.

"Mnie się podobają melodie, które już raz słyszałem." - I like melodies that I've heard before.
"Te pytania są tendencyjne" These questions are tendentious.

i think it's Jachowicz...

Var som en Polsk riksdag (It was like a Polish statemeeting)

Usely referred to chaotic and non-progressive meetings in Norway
But, its not often heard since in history books there is nothing about poland, except a blitz in 1939 then no more until 1989. and then nothing again.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Copernicus

Not thats a Pole who knew what he was talking about )

I asked my Latin teacher. She said it was Cicero...

Hmm One could think that It would be nice If a few thousand people fighting to defend your country were mentioned.

Joe Pilsudski.

Yeah, I thought the same, but in larger numbers ;)

Yes, your're right, z_darius. It is SWEGO