Adam Michnik Quotes

The French view globalization as synonymous with Americanization, the cultural imperialism that has filled France with bad food, bad films, and English words.

They're very nationalistic the French - or they used to be. Very insular. Pretty arrogant.

The French are so into themselves that they don't even notice you.

It was enough to be familiar with European culture - enough just to be a European, born or naturalized - to feel oneself the master, lord of the house, the world's custodian. For this European needed no qualifications, no additional knowledge, no particular qualities of mind or character. I observed this still in the 1950s and 1960s in Africa and Asia. Some European, in his own country very average, even incompetent, and held in law regard, right away became a high commissioner, the chairman of a great concern, director of a hospital or school when he arrived in Malaysia or Malawi.

We must return to the French the pride of being French.

The French consider themselves the guardians of the world's culture and do not bother to hide the fact, which is annoying, but Paris is still where good Americans want to go when they die - and Brits, Russians, and Chinese as well, these days.

I shouldn't say it, but I found that the French can be the most arrogant people in the world if they want to be.

The French are very bizarre. There is this collective depiction: 'We're in decline, we're being assailed, we must protect ourselves.'

Often, these downplay the power of cultural imperialism - in that sense, playing the game of US interests - by reassuring us that the global success of American mass culture is not as bad as all that.

Culture follows power.

Unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. In this world, fear has no place. Only strength respects strength.

Now, if you are like me - if you are like practically anybody in America - then you probably hold some negative opinions about the French, based upon movies, rumors, recent headlines, unfortunate run-ins with Parisian waiters, or... you know... all that unpleasantness surrounding the Vichy regime.

I am proud to wear the name Le Pen.

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

The Russians have a lot at stake, and the power of Moscow pride should never be underestimated.

There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people.

The French never allow a distinguished son of France to lack a statue.

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course, I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

When a society is economically dominant, it is easy for its members to assume that such dominance reflects a deeper superiority—whether religious, racial, genetic, ethnic, cultural, or institutional—rather than an accident of timing or geography.

If the Germans are beaten, General de Gaulle will return. He will be supported by 80 or 90 per cent of the French people and I shall be hanged.

The Cabinets who rule the destinies of nations from the various capitals of Europe are but the tools of the moneyed interest. Their quarrels are not dictated by sentiments of national pride or honor, but by the avarice and lust of power on the part of the class to which they belong.

When I want to know what the French people think, I ask myself.

You do not understand the honor of France!

The French find ways to disagree with us just to show that they are able not to agree with us.

Generally speaking, they [Americans] are not a people we should be proud to acknowledge as our relations.