Our firm conviction that ours is a just cause and that we must find a peaceful way to attain our goals gave us the strength and the awareness of the limits beyond which we must not go.

Our national history has so often filled us with bitterness and the feeling of helplessness.

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.

It was in us, in our hearts and minds that something started that changed the face of this earth.

The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible.

My most ardent desire is that my country will recapture its historic opportunity for a peaceful evolution and that Poland will prove to the world that even the most complex situations can be solved by a dialogue and not by force.