Daily Inspiration Quote by Lech Walesa

A dissident’s insult disguised as economics: Walesa frames political speech as an overproduced commodity whose value has crashed. “The supply of words” evokes summit communiques, party slogans, televised promises - a glut of language meant to simulate motion while power stays put. By calling it the “world market,” he needles both East and West. Communist regimes specialized in propaganda, but Western leaders also loved ceremonious statements about freedom that conveniently stopped short of consequences. The metaphor works because it’s cold and transactional: when talk is abundant, its price drops. Everyone can afford to say the right thing; almost no one pays for it.

The subtext is impatience with performative politics. Walesa, forged in the Gdansk shipyards and the Solidarity movement, is speaking from a world where “words” were not harmless - they were a state’s main tool of control, and also the West’s preferred way of showing support without risking escalation. He’s warning that rhetorical solidarity has a half-life. If language becomes cheap, cynicism becomes rational.

“Let deeds follow words now” is deliberately plain, almost biblical in cadence, a pivot from diagnosis to demand. It refuses the comfort of eloquence. The line isn’t anti-speech; it’s anti-delay. Walesa’s point is that legitimacy is earned not by proclaiming moral positions but by accepting the costs they imply: sanctions, protections, organizing, bargaining, strikes, votes. He’s cashing in the promissory note of rhetoric and insisting on delivery.