623 Quotes by Polish authors

Polish sayings and lines from literature braid tenderness with stubborn defiance. They taste of bread and salt, village kitchens and shipyard whistles, and speak in a dry, resilient humor that turns hardship into sly wisdom. Themes of memory, dignity, and the tug between fate and choice recur; faith argues with doubt, love with duty, homeland with exile. Melancholy, żal, leans close, yet so does przekora, the urge to contradict despair. Concise truth, barbed irony, and sudden lyricism keep hope gritty rather than gilded.

See the complete list of authors from Poland

"I saw science as being in harmony with humanity"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales"

Marie Curie, Scientist

Marie Curie

"Murder is not the crime of criminals, but that of law-abiding citizens"

Emanuel Tanay, Professor

Emanuel Tanay

"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"

Lech Walesa, Activist

"You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects"

Wislawa Szymborska, Poet

"The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with"

Rose Schneiderman, Activist

"Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge"

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Educator

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness"

Joseph Conrad, Novelist

Joseph Conrad

"I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go"

Joseph Conrad, Novelist

Joseph Conrad

"At a time when science plays such a powerful role in the life of society, when the destiny of the whole of mankind may hinge on the results of scientific research, it is incumbent on all scientists to be fully conscious of that role, and conduct themselves accordingly"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"I have to bring to your notice a terrifying reality: with the development of nuclear weapons Man has acquired, for the first time in history, the technical means to destroy the whole of civilization in a single act"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done"

Marie Curie, Scientist

Marie Curie

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained"

Marie Curie, Scientist

Marie Curie

"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"

Nicolaus Copernicus, Scientist

"Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth"

Nicolaus Copernicus, Scientist

"First of all, we must note that the universe is spherical"

Nicolaus Copernicus, Scientist

"It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail"

Lech Walesa, Activist

"I studied architecture in New York. So, really I was very moved, like everyone else, to try to contribute something that has that resonance and profundity of it means to all of us"

Daniel Libeskind, Architect

Daniel Libeskind

"Previously the same Polish audiences would have been pressured into seeing cinema made for adults, films made by us about those spheres of life that were significant for us and which should be significant for our society"

Andrzej Wajda, Director

"We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift"

Rose Schneiderman, Activist

"Sexual underwear is tacky"

Izabella Scorupco, Actress

Izabella Scorupco

"If you want to truly understand something, try to change it"

Kurt Lewin, Psychologist

"Hard work keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit"

Helena Rubinstein, Businessman

"The trouble with us is that the ghetto of the Middle Ages and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof"

Anzia Yezierska, Novelist

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art"

Frederic Chopin, Composer

Frederic Chopin

"The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

Pope John Paul II

"When smashing monuments, save the pedestals - they always come in handy"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"In a war of ideas it is people who get killed"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"Don't trust the heart, it wants your blood"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"Telling lies does not work in advertising"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"Never lie when the truth is more profitable"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man, but they don't bite everybody"

Stanislaw Lec, Poet

Stanislaw Lec

"A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair"

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Educator

Abraham Joshua Heschel

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