Atheists

"We've been talking all afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of poverty. But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left? Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet. (Speech at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, June 2012)"

"I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more. This is a matter of freedom. If you don't have many possessions then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself."

"That (Guantanamo Bay detention camp) isn’t a prison. It’s a kidnapping den, because a prison entails subjection to some system of law, the presence of some sort of prosecutor, the decision of some judge — whomever that may be — and a minimal point of reference from a judicial point of view. Guantánamo has nothing."

"Locked up, I almost went mad... Now I'm a prisoner of my own freedom to think and decide as I wish. I cultivate that freedom and fight for it. I may make mistakes, some huge, but one of my few virtues is I say what I think... I re-read Plato in search of keys to understand what is going on, for nothing is completely new... Politics, which should rule human relations, has succumbed to economics and become a mere administrator... My definition of poverty is the one we owe to Seneca: It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor... I have the aggressive courage to speak out. It's not done in the modern world, where people conceal and disguise their feelings. Maybe that's why I get people's attention... This [marijuana] law is a trial. It doesn't mean we have the final answer....The only thing I'm sure of is that the policy of combating drugs which has been enforced for decades is a crashing failure.... I think recognition of gay marriage, abortion and the law on marijuana all represent progress. But they will really achieve something when there is less of a gap between the poor, the destitute and the very rich... You know what getting old means? No longer wanting to leave home."

"The fight against the dirty economy, drug trafficking, theft & fraud, corruption - all of these contemporary scourges which were adopted by this opposite set of values, those who maintain that we are happier when we are richer no matter what means are used."

"We are a republican voice for the world – a proclamation that has been interpreted to signpost a “possible future, a path, however modest, to take for the common good with politics as its ethical base and honesty as its guiding light."

"Our civilization has mounted a deceitful challenge, and as we go on it is not possible for everyone to achieve that goal. Indeed, our culture is increasingly driven by accumulation and market forces. We are promised a life of spending and squandering; in fact, it is a countdown against nature and against future humankind. It is a civilization against simplicity, against sobriety, against all natural cycles; It is a civilization against freedom, which requires time to experience human relationships and the most important things: love, friendship, adventure, solidarity and family"

"Stupefied, we have rejected our own biological imperative, which defends life for life’s sake as a superior cause, and we have replaced it by functional consumerism and accumulation."

"Today, it is time to fight to prepare a world without borders."

"The globalized economy has no other driving force except that of the private interests of the very few, and each nation State seeks only to maintain its own stability."

"Politics, the eternal mother of all human endeavors, has remained shackled to the economy and to the marketplace."

"Let us consider the deep-rooted causes, the civilization of waste, the present civilization that is stealing time from human life and wasting it on pointless matters."

"Consider that human life is a miracle, that we are alive as a result of a miracle, and that nothing is more important than life."

"It is possible to eliminate poverty from the planet. It is possible to create stability. It will be possible for future generations, if they begin to reason as a species and not just as individuals..."

"Our biological duty is, above all, to respect life, promote it, take care of it, reproduce it and understand that WE are the species."

"If our dreams are to come true, we will have to control ourselves or we will die. We will die because we are not capable of being at the level of the civilization that we have been developing with our efforts. That is our dilemma. We should not spend our time merely correcting the consequences."

"With talent and collective work, with science, step by step humankind can make deserts green; humankind can bring agriculture to the seas; humankind can develop agriculture that lives with salt water."

"What is the big picture of which we speak? It is the system of global life on Earth, including human life, with all the fragile balances that make it impossible for us to continue as we are."

"If the power of humankind is focused on what is essential, it is infinite."

"Turning to a useful neo-Keynesianism on a global scale in order to abolish the world’s most flagrant embarrassments would be a thousand times more profitable than making war."

"How many millions of dollars have they taken from our pockets deliberately creating junk so that people will buy and buy and buy?...In our culture, we act as if nothing had happened. Instead of us controlling globalization, it controls us."

"The greed that pushed us to domesticate science and transform technology — is paradoxically pushing us over the edge into a shadowy abyss, towards an unknown fate, an era without history, and we are left without eyes to see or the collective intelligence to continue to colonize and transform ourselves."

"Every minute in the life of our planet, we spend $2 million on military budgets around the world — $2 million a minute."

"The fact is that we tend to cultivate feudal anachronisms, spoiled affectations and hierarchical distinctions that undermine the best feature of republics — the fact that no one is better than anyone else. The interaction of those factors and others keeps us living in prehistory, and today it is impossible to renounce war when politics fails. Thus, economies are strangled and resources wasted."

"Medical research on all manner of diseases, which has made huge advances and is a blessing that promises longer life, receives barely a fifth of what is budgeted for the military. That process, from which we cannot escape, perpetuates hatred, fanaticism and distrust, fuels new wars and wastes fortunes."

"We have to figure out how to recycle more and how to counter global warming. What are the limits of each human task? How many years ago did they tell us in Kyoto about certain facts linked to climate change?"

"The world is clamoring for global regulations that respect scientific achievements, which abound, but it is not science that governs the world."

"We have finally learned that intelligence must be at the helm, guiding the ship to port."

"Today, the world is incapable of establishing global regulations for the planet, due to the failure of lofty global politics, which meddles with everything."

"Truly productive capitalism is a prisoner of the banks, which are at the summit of global power."

"We must achieve a broad planetary consensus to unleash solidarity among the most oppressed and to punish and tax waste and speculation by mobilizing the large economies not to produce disposable goods, but rather useful goods without planned obsolescence or excess, which would help the world’s poorest peoples. Useful goods could stand against world poverty."

"The average city dweller wanders between financial institutions and tedious office routines, sometimes moderated by air conditioning. He often dreams about vacations and freedom. He dreams about having the ability to pay his bills until one day his heart stops and he is gone. Other such soldiers will fall prey to the jaws of the marketplace."

"Going from one adventure to another, politics achieves little more than perpetuating itself, and as such it delegates its power and spends its time bewildered, fighting for the Government. Out of control, human history marches forward, buying and selling everything and innovating in order to negotiate what is, in a way, non-negotiable..."

"The transformations in the Polish economy continue. We are slowly approaching the completion of the privatisation of enterprises and banks. We have built a securities and financial instruments market from scratch. The private sector, employing almost 70 per cent of the entire working population, is growing dynamically."

"We have become aware of the responsibility for our attitude towards the dark pages in our history. We have understood that bad service is done to the nation by those who are impelling to renounce that past. Such attitude leads to a moral self-destruction."

"I've gotten to know this man well over the years. He is a leader, he understands that people need to lead their country towards peace and freedom and prosperity. And President Kwasniewski is doing just that. He's making a mark on the continent of Europe through his leadership. He stands strong. In every conversation I've had with him, he has a deep love for the Polish people. He expresses his desire for close relations, because he understands close relations between our countries is in the people's interest. And Mr. President, I'm so glad you're back. I appreciate your friendship, I appreciate your strength."

"Today there is no communism in Europe, no Warsaw Pact, no balance of fear. We, Poles, have a great satisfaction that the cause of the construction of better, united and secure Europe of free people began in Poland and has achieved the present phase here, in Rome."

"The Cold War walls have come down. They have set free the spirits of freedom and democracy, but also unleashed the demons of new threats to security. Among those threats are unconventional capabilities of the so-called "states of concern.""

"Ex-communists frequently did well out of the ‘transition to the market’. This was a phenomenon common to several states in the region but not in Poland, the Czech Republic or the abolished German Democratic Republic, where communists were flung out of positions of influence. Nearly everywhere the communist parties adopted fresh names, new leaders and a programme of ideas close to social-democracy rather than communism. This was usually not enough to earn them popular trust. But they were not disgraced in elections and in 1995 the ex-communist Alexander Kwasniewski won the Polish presidency and served two full terms. This had been barely imaginable in the heady years of Solidarity’s supremacy. Yet capitalism had not been kind to many people in Poland and elsewhere in the 1990s. Mass unemployment, shoddy welfare facilities and a widening of the gap between rich and poor gave communists a second chance in politics. They had to adjust their appeal by wrapping themselves in the national flag, throwing Marxism to the winds and identifying themselves with the needs of downtrodden electors. Electoral victory did not come easily or often. Kwasniewski had done better than the candidates put up by communist parties in western Europe."

"In the old Belarusian society, women’s stories—however important—were silenced. The crucial change we observe now is that women are not only organising to survive but they are leading the fight. That is indeed incredibly inspirational!"

"I think, for me, the first important thing is that the West should have a common policy toward Russia. So the unity of the European Union and the United States is a precondition for good talks and good relationships with Russia."

"I understand that if someone asks me to be part of some project it’s not only because I’m so good, it’s also because I am Kwasniewski and I am a former president of Poland. And this is all inter-connected. No-names are a nobody."

"Six years ago, I didn’t hope, I didn’t dream that in 1995 I would win the presidential election. But the situation in Poland changed very fast, and became totally unpredictable. Poland is going on this democratic way faster than we thought before."

"Poland really started to change in 1989. Since then, we have achieved our main goals: we are in the European Union, we are in NATO, and we finally have democracy after almost fifty years of communist rule. We have a full-fledged free-market economy."

"Ukraine is not an ideal country, nor will it be one for a long time to come. But we have the opportunity to introduce it to our standards. If we don't do that, Kiev will follow the Russian and the Belarusian model. Ukraine was strongly under Russia's influence for centuries, and its people experienced a very brutal form of communism."

"The COVID-19 pandemic is still evolving with complexities while the endurance of the people and businesses has its limit. Poverty is resurgent, unemployment is on the rise, and social inequality is worsening. Racing against time, we must take bolder actions, and engage in more substantive and effective cooperation."

"We also seek to create a ripple effect in the use of information and digital technology, and step up economic restructuring and growth model transformation in close coordination with digital transformation."

"The strong advances of science and technology and the digital transformation taking place around the globe present both opportunities and challenges to countries, especially the developing ones. Social conflicts stemming from social disparities, discrimination and stigma have deteriorated due to the pandemic, further widening the divide within countries."

"Millions of Vietnamese died throughout years of resistance wars to protect the country, our independence and freedom. More than ever, we value peace, based on mutual respect for each others’ independence and sovereignty."

"We don’t forget our past, our history, but we need (closure) in order to look to the future. We need such mutual understanding to build our nations in peace, to better solve the problems in the lives of our citizens."