Lech Walesa Quotes

Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.

Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not utopian ideals. They are critical to global peace and security.

We have a moral imperative to keep up the search for something better than mutual assured destruction.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

Libya is a good example of a country that has come to a realization that weapons of mass destruction threaten more than assure, and I hope that will be followed by others.

Arms control has to have a future, or none of us does.

Disarmament has become the urgent imperative of our time. I do not say this because I equate the absence of arms to peace, or because I believe that bringing an end to the nuclear arms race automatically guarantees the peace, or because the elimination of nuclear warheads from the arsenals of the world will bring in its wake that change in attitude requisite to the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations. Disarmament is vital today, quite simply, because of the immense destructive capacity of which men dispose.

There is a widespread understanding among the people of this nation, and probably among the people of the world, that there is no safety except through the prevention of war.

The leaders of the world face no greater task than that of avoiding nuclear war. While preserving the cause of freedom, we must seek abolition of war through programs of general and complete disarmament. The Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 represents a significant beginning in this immense undertaking.

My short-term vision is the abolition of nuclear weapons. My long-term vision is the abolition of war.

The burden for achieving disarmament cannot be borne by peace groups alone. Everybody, regardless of age, income, profession, gender or nationality, has a stake in this quest.

I know of no more important subject to the peace of Europe and the world than the reasonable reduction of armaments, especially in Europe, and of naval armaments throughout the world.

If the world is disarmed, and remains disarmed, there will be no more world wars.

Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important in our foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War. I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.

If men do not now succeed in abolishing war, civilization and mankind are doomed.

The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.

There is no greater responsibility resting upon peoples and governments everywhere than to make sure that enduring peace will this time - at long last - be established and maintained.

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.

Do not listen to those who set up doctrines which are dangerous to the peace of the world.

We still have to deal as an organization of labor with the number one problem facing the people of this nation and every nation: that of war or peace; an armament race or disarmament; higher or lower living standards for all the world’s people;

True and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament -- disarmament follows peace.