Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture

No, if you look through the whole thread again, you will see it is not true.

OK, here`s sth to flatter your hurt ego :)

Norman Davies, a British Polish historian, once said in an interview there was a British saying in the past: When you go to the jungle, take a Polish person with you. I don`t want to write a Pole so that it won` t sound ambiguous.

Not true at all. Judging from your comments, I think you quite often don't know how to take him.

Please, don`t take me yet, I still would like to post a few interesting things in the forum. :)

E..g, Władysław Bełza wrote this patriotic poem for kids in pre-war times. It is commonly believed pre WW2, but no, WW1.

Boy`s version
Who are you?
A Polish child. (or lad)
What's your emblem?
The eagle in white.

I just learnt from this PL wiki that communists banned it in 1950s. Unbelievable.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katechizm_polskiego_dziecka

There is a version for girls, too. Sorry, no rhyme.

Who are you?
A Polish girl.
What`s your emblem?
White lily.

I'm not an expert on this, but I did a lot of reading about the mentality of the post-1945 Polish communists, and there may be some explanation for it - many of them blamed the excessive patriotism of the II RP in ethnic Polish circles for the war, and so there was a backlash among them against such things, as it was blamed for the destruction of Poland in WW2. You can observe the same thing in post-war East Germany, where people genuinely believed that the Communists would make sure that war wouldn't happen again.

What Polish? Those were Soviets and soviets were following directives from Moscow.

Yes, this or still another thing - communists deliberately decided to reject everything what Second Republic was built on because they were trying to construct a completely new system. Bełza`s poem had been very popular before the war so it was to be forgotten in new times. However, communists came to reason and after the stalinist period, the poem was restored. I learnt it at school in the second half of 20th century.

Talking about communism - two other famous quotes from the period:
Let`s talk like a Pole with a Pole - Lech Wałęsa commented on his negotiations with the communist government in 1980 about creating Solidarity..

During first Solidarity of 1981, monuments to massacred workers were erected in various places in Poland. The motto at the time was: Never let a Pole shoot at another Pole again. The motto was soon broken during martial law.

Wasn't this one of the most shocking things about martial law - that the army was actually willing to hurt/kill fellow Poles, when the belief was that the army would actually defend Poland against any invasion by Warsaw Pact forces?


I can understand their way of thinking. The II RP failed so quickly and badly that I would have wanted a clean break too, especially given the huge diplomatic failures that took place during that time. Of course, they went back to having pretty poor relations with the DDR for years, but at least they put a stop to the nonsense with the Czechoslovaks.

It's curious how Communism evolved in Poland, especially once Gomułka arrived back on the scene and introduced "national communism" for the lack of a better description.

Ordinary soldiers and some low rank officers were decent guys, just average Poles (compulsory service at the time). It was those top shots in the headquarters who ordered to mercilessly crush down the opposition, even shooting at them. They didn`t fear Poles` or West`s hostile reaction to their dirty deeds. The only thing they feared were Soviets who might have them deposed from their posts within hours if they hadn`t carried out Kremlin`s orders. And the order was clear - put a stop to the Solidarity disease which could spread all over Eastern block. .

Curious for you but an invasion and occupation for me, as for further evolution it was a well planned system of re-education and subjugation.

There was nothing well-planned about it. The Communist leadership was in a mess at various points (especially after Poznań 1956 and in 1980-1), and there were several clear times when they were reacting in a knee-jerk way to various issues.


Don't forget that it would never have worked without the Polish nomeklatura.

Still communist times:
Cardinal Wyszyński, the one who successfully defended the Church against communist pressure, commented on Polish resistance to becoming Soviet like: You will never win Poles` approval using a threat. Use heart, instead. Of course, communists were not able to follow that advice, that is why they lost.:)

Thanks for finally acknowledging the truth.

As you know I've been consistently calling you out on this.

I'll say it again, there are true Poles and then there are PRL-era Poles. :)

No, the problem is you have been consistently lying as it was pointed to you many times in other threads. :):)

You know next to nothing not only about real Poland but also about Polonia, hence that famous slip up of yours in the first posts in this thread when you placed rabbies and Zionists at the tables of Polonia charity event. Lies intermingled with ignorance. :)

hahaha Thanks, I still have fun whenever I imagine the situation. Tell it to Am Polonia and they will tear you apart alive. :):)

Still waiting for you to do that on the Nice treaty thread.


Another lie from Sh*tty. Anybody who has read about the life of Chopin knows how much he loved Poland. Why did he want his heart returned to Poland after his death, that says it all really. His last public performance was in aid of a Polish charity. On his deathbed he was surrounded by his Polish friends.

In 1848 he wrote:

"our people are gathering in Poznań. Czartoryski was the first to go there, but God only knows what direction events will take for Poland to exist again...horrible things are likely to happen, but at the end of the day there will be Poland, great and magnificent, in short: Poland."

Well Paw, there are only two options, either Sh*tty, really is a complete ignoramus or he's a liar. I'd say a bit of both :)

Don't be so modest, @delphiandomine. It seems that you're an expert on everything except Mongolian throat singing.


@Atch, I have to give you that thanks to you my arsenal of polite insults has grown significantly :-)

Ha,ha sounds so exciting subject.:-) Maybe we should investigate it more...

@Iwonka, it is interesting indeed :-) Here's a sample:

youtube.com/watch?v=1rmo3fKeveo

I won`t wait for the 17th September 1939 anniversary of the Soviet invasion in fear of forgetting about this quote:

Soviet Foreign and Prime Minister Molotov said:

It became apparent that all that was needed was an initial attack of the German Army and, after that, the attack of the Soviet [Army]; in order to leave nothing of [Poland,] this monstrous bastard of the Treaty of Versailles ...

17september1939.com/

A monkey is a much better voter than a socialist. Statistically speaking, if we assume that there are two options to choose from: the "A" and the "B" - the monkey is voting randomly, so its wrong 50% of the time. The socialist, however - is always wrong.

~ Janusz Korwin Mikke, Polish politician, leader of Liberty party. European Union MP

Nice, but why are you two littering the thread with sth alien to its title? Read it again if you are at a loss. This thread is about Poles and Poland and your rubbish isn`t. Anybody can say sth general about people/mankind/humanity and then claim it also applies to Poles because they are people, too.

You are wrong, @pawian. Janusz Korwin-Mikke is a vital part of Polish contemporary political culture. You can either agree or disagree with him but you can't deny that he is very intelligent, interesting and charismatic public figure.

Ah yes, the man who said that watching disabled athletes should be avoided as it leads to 'temporary mobility disorder' in healthy people.

I pick myself those ideas which JKM shares that I find interesting and inspiring. We don't have to accept everything uncritically. Let's leave that to a totalitarian-minded people which can't think for themselves :-)

Let's take Churchill for example. I think that he was a grim character and, ultimately, a loser who put the final nail in the coffin of the British Empire.

He didn't deserve such an appraisal which he receives in Britain.

Yet, he has produced a handful of interesting, inspiring and thought provoking quotes.

He doesn't impress me. The remark regarding temporary mobility disorder was pure nonsense, not the comment of a truly intelligent person.


Churchill led a nation through WWII. No comparison really.


I think you'll find that nowadays people have a fairly balanced view of Churchill, his strengths and his failings.

Many of the things he says are interesting.... but not in a good way. He was very briefly fashionable among disaffected young people (always on the look out for a protest candidate) but that's long over and he's well past his due date.

Interesting and inspiring doesn't always has to be impressive. And the real measure of intelligence is not producing a publicly acceptable statements. Most of the time is quite on the contrary.

@mafketis

That depends what you mean by a "good way". That man for example has predicted a financial and structural problems of ZUS a few decades before it started to be visible to a general public. Many narrow-minded folks even now don't believe that there is a problem ... :-)

It's nothing to do with being publicly acceptable. Such a statement as the one about temporary mobility disorder wouldn't even be privately acceptable. It's sheer stupidity and it's not as if he has a catalogue of extraordinary achievements to counterbalance it and place it in the category of 'eccentric'.

@Atch, He does have great achievements in discouraging many young people from following misleading socialist ways and getting trapped in a brain-damaging mindset of a political correctness.

I disagree with him on some occasions yet he's got my gratitude just for doing that.

For a lot of people in PL, it's hard to think of that creep JKM without remembering the time he stabbed himself in a restaurant toilet and blamed it on a mystery (and presumably not very competent) 'Chinese Assassin'.

It's only outside Poland where his vile quotes (like the one about Poles being the n****rs of Europe) define him.

Not really. When most people are old enough to vote, they realise that Korwinism is essentially just a series of soundbites without any substance.

I still remember how Korwinists were boasting about online polls where they had 25-30% before the last election. The real result: less than 5%.