First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
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"Well, from here I will go to Bonn and then Berlin, where there stands a grim symbol of power untamed. The Berlin Wall, that dreadful gray gash across the city, is in its third decade. It is the fitting signature of the regime that built it. And a few hundred kilometers behind the Berlin Wall, there is another symbol. In the center of Warsaw, there is a sign that notes the distances to two capitals. In one direction it points toward Moscow. In the other it points toward Brussels, headquarters of Western Europe's tangible unity. The marker says that the distances from Warsaw to Moscow and Warsaw to Brussels are equal. The sign makes this point: Poland is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. Poland's struggle to be Poland and to secure the basic rights we often take for granted demonstrates why we dare not take those rights for granted. Gladstone, defending the Reform Bill of 1866, declared, ``You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. It was easier to believe in the march of democracy in Gladstone's day -- in that high noon of Victorian optimism."
"Cultivation, old civilization, beauty, history! Surprising turnings of streets, shapes of venerable cottages, lovely aged eaves, unexpected and gossamer turrets, steeples, the gloss, the antiquity! Gardens. Whoever speaks of Paris has never seen Warsaw. [...] Whoever yearns for an aristocratic sensibility, let him switch on the great light of Warsaw."
"So there is no single European people. There is no single all-embracing community of culture and tradition among, say, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Berlin and Belgrade. In fact, there are at least four communities: the Northern Protestant, the Latin Catholic, the Greek Orthodox, and the Muslim Ottoman. There is no single language - there are more than twenty. (...) There are no real European political parties (...). And most significantly of all: unlike the United States, Europe still does not have a common story."
"When the Jews finally staged the uprising in April 1943, the Polish underground refused them almost every form of assistance. Even though they were facing the same enemy, even though their country was occupied, the Poles could not overcome their anti-Semitism and join the Jews in the struggle for the freedom of both groups, and instead chose to stage a separate Polish uprising more than a year later."
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone â Greece with its immortal glories â is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place."
"âTwas a night to make the bravest Shrink from the tempestâs breath, For the winter snows were bitter, And the winds were cruel as death.All day on the roofs of Warsaw Had the white storm sifted down Till it almost hid the humble huts Of the poor outside the town."
"A thousand soldiers knelt in Warsawâs square, The solemn oath of battle sternly taking; They swore, without a shot, the foe to dare, With bayonetsâ point their deadly pathway making. Beat drums! march on, and let our country tell That âPolandâs Fourthâ will keep its promise well."
"Warschau wird glattrasiert."
"Lâordre règne Ă Varsovie."
"But the will to not let history repeat itself, to do something radically new, was so strong that new words had to be found. For people Europe was a promise, Europe equalled hope. When Konrad Adenauer came to Paris to conclude the Coal and Steel Treaty, in 1951, one evening he found a gift waiting at his hotel. It was a war medal, une Croix de Guerre, that had belonged to a French soldier. His daughter, a young student, had left it with a little note for the Chancellor, as a gesture of reconciliation and hope. I can see many other stirring images before me. Leaders of six States assembled to open a new future, in Rome, città eterna ⌠Willy Brandt kneeling down in Warsaw. The dockers of Gdansk, at the gates of their shipyard. Mitterrand and Kohl hand in hand. Two million people linking Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius in a human chain, in 1989. These moments healed Europe."
"Mr. Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe. Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage. If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence! ...The European Community is one manifestation of that European identity, but it is not the only one. We must never forget that east of the Iron Curtain, peoples who once enjoyed a full share of European culture, freedom and identity have been cut off from their roots. We shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities...To try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardise the objectives we seek to achieve. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality...it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the Community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels."
"To my mind, imperialism is something very simple and clear and it exists as a fact when one country, a large country, seizes a certain strip of territory and subjects to its laws a certain number of men and women against their will. Soviet policy after the beginning of the second world war was precisely this. There is no difficulty in pointing this out, but the difficulty lies in the fact that when one quotes from memory one will forget one or other argument. Because the Russians, thanks to the second world war, have quite simply annexed the three Baltic States, taken a piece of Finland, a piece of Rumania, a piece of Poland, a piece of Germany and, thanks to a well thought-out policy composed of internal subversion and external pressure, have established Governments justifiably styled as Satellites, in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Tirana and East Berlin - I except Belgrade where the regime is unique thanks to the energy and courage of Marshal Tito. If all this does not constitute manifestations of imperialism, if all this is not the result of a policy consciously willed and consciously pursued, an imperialist aim, then indeed we shall have to start to go back to a new discussion and a new definition of words."
"I remember vividly in 1974 being in the mass of people, descending the streets in my native Lisbon, in Portugal, celebrating the democratic revolution and freedom. This same feeling of joy was experienced by the same generation in Spain and Greece. It was felt later in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States when they regained their independence. Several generations of Europeans have shown again and again that their choice for Europe was also a choice for freedom. I will never forget Rostropovich playing Bach at the fallen Wall in Berlin. This image reminds the world that it was the quest for freedom and democracy that tore down the old divisions and made possible the reunification of the continent. Joining the European Union was essential for the consolidation of democracy in our countries. Because it places the person and respect of human dignity at its heart. Because it gives a voice to differences while creating unity. And so, after reunification, Europe was able to breathe with both its lungs, as said by Karol WojtiĹa. The European Union has become our common house. The âhomeland of our homelandsâ as described by Vaclav Havel."
"Between Muhammadâs death and the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate in 750, Arab armies appeared everywhere from central Asia, through the Middle East and north Africa, throughout the Visigothic Iberian Peninsula, and even into southern France. They imposed Islamic governments and introduced new ways of living, trading, learning, thinking, building, and praying. The capital of the vast caliphate they established would be Damascus itself, crowned with its Great Mosqueâone of the masterpieces of medieval architecture anywhere in the world. In Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock was built on top of the site of the old Jewish Second Templeâand its gleaming dome became an iconic landmark on that cityâs famous skyline. Elsewhere, great new cities like Cairo, Kairouan (Tunisia), and Baghdad grew out of Arab military garrison towns, while other settlements like Merv (Turkmenistan), Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Lisbon, and CĂłrdoba were renewed as major mercantile and trading cities. The caliphate established by the Arab conquests was more than just a new political federation. It was specifically and explicitly a faith empireâmore so than the Roman Empire had ever been, even after Constantineâs conversion and Justinianâs reforms; even after a promulgation late in Heracliusâs reign that all Jews in Byzantium were to be forcibly converted to Christianity. Within this caliphate, an old languageâArabicâand a new religionâIslamâwere central to the identity of the conquerors and, as time went on, became ever more central to the lives of the conquered. The creation of a global dar al-Islam (abode, or house of Islam) in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. would have profound consequences for the rest of the Middle Ages, and indeed for the world today. With the exception of Spain and Portugal (and, later, Sicily), almost every major territory that was captured by early medieval Islamic armies retained, and still retains today, an Islamic identity and culture. The spirit of scientific invention and intellectual inquiry that thrived in some of the larger and more cosmopolitan Islamic cities would come to play a key role in the Renaissance of the later Middle Ages."
"Lisbon, that name of being and non-being With its secret meanders of amazement, insomnia, and tin shacks And secret glitter of something theatrical Its conniving smile of intrigue and masks While the wide ocean dilates west Lisbon rocking like a great boat Lisbon cruelly built along its own absence"
"The determining factor in international politics after the second world war-was the coup d'etat at Prague, the disappearance of a democratic progressive policy and its replacement by a totalitarian government with a Communist minority. It will have a singularly important place devoted to it when the time comes to write the post-war history of international politics. The coup d'etat at Prague, the disappearance of Czechoslovakia as a free democratic State, was the last straw on the camel's back, or, if you prefer, the flash of lightning which opened the most stubborn eyes. Everyone understood in Western Europe, and fortunately also in the New World, that if we wanted to prevent the continuing unbounded development of Soviet imperialism, if we wanted to prevent its repetition in other capitals or in other more or less similar ways, yet following the same pattern, the same political procedure, that if we wanted to avoid the repetition of the events of Prague, then the Western countries had got to unite, to draw together and give Soviet Russia clearly to under- stand that Prague represented the last manifestation of this imperialism which we could permit without far more important and serious results."
"While many of the world's richest people live in London, four of its boroughs rank among the twenty poorest in England, and 27 percent of the city's population live in poverty. London's polarized economic landscape is typical of "superstar" cities. Other leading cities of EuropeâOslo, Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest, Madrid, Prague, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vienna, Vilniusâalso suffer widening gaps between the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy."
"In Prague classical architecture becomes romantic, and romantic architecture absorbs the classical characters to endow the earth with a particular kind of surreal humanity. Both become cosmic, not in the sense of abstract order, but as spiritual aspiration. Evidently Prague is one of the great meeting-places where a multitude of meanings are gathered."
"The French writer, Albert Camus, once lamented that "man eventually becomes accustomed to everything". I have always believed that this is an unjustly pessimistic view of our human condition; and in recent weeks I have seen enough to convince me that Camus, on this point at least, was wrong: 30,000 East Germans abandoning home, friends, jobs, everything, to escape to a new life of opportunity but also uncertainty in the West; thousands of Soviet miners striking not for more pay, but for better supplies; the joy of Poles as they greet their first non-Communist Prime Minister in 40 years; over a million inhabitants of the Baltic states forming a human chain to protest against the forced annexation of their nations; demonstrators in Prague braving the security forces to mark the 21st anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion; or in Leipzig calling for freedom of speech. Clearly the peoples of the East have not become accustomed to their lot. Totalitarian rule has not made people less attracted by freedom, democracy and self-determination. The opposite is true. Nor has it made them incapable of exercising these values through political organization and self-expression: look at the debates in the new Congress of the People's Deputies, the activities of the popular fronts, Solidarity in Poland or the opposition parties in Hungary. The demand for pluralism and reform can now be heard in every Eastern nation."
"The people from Prague and other Czechs should be whipped who speak half Czech and half German (...) And who could enumerate how the Czech language has already been corrupted, so that the true Czech hears they speak, but he does not understand them. And from that arises envy, anger, conflict, strife and Czech humiliation."
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow."
"Thanks to the care of the Belgian military authorities, the volunteers returned to their homeland, we were able to find asylum in the barracks in Antwerp."
"While in 1960 barely 7% of the Antwerp population had an immigration background, in 2021 this has evolved to 59.7% of which the vast majority has a non-European background: 39.6% of Antwerp residents are of non-European descent. Knowing that in 2020 49.4% of the mothers of newborns were of non-European nationality, the bill was quickly settled. In a maximum of 20 years Antwerp will have a majority of residents of non-European descent, the majority of whom will be Muslims. The population is moving at a rapid pace. The flexible Belgian nationality legislation has become a kind of âFast Belgian factoryâ. Foreigners disappear from the statistics and officially become Belgians, but of course ensure the further multiculturalization of Antwerp. Along with the ethnic transition, a cultural shift is also taking place, with all its consequences. The native Flemings and their culture and way of life threaten to become a minority in the long run, ripe for the reserveâŚ"
"We are exhausted in Antwerp and have endured so much that this war seems without purpose.. ..[and that it seemed] strange that Spain, which provides so little for the needs of this country... has an abundance of means to wage an offensive war elsewhere."
"I thought about it carefully and I remained convinced that there is no place in Belgium that it could be more desirable for me to represent than Antwerp. ... I have always been imbued with the conviction that matters which particularly affect the prosperity of Antwerp should have a large part in the care of the government. Belgium had its era of commercial activity, because at that time it had ready-made means of selling the products of its manufactures. I think that the efforts of the government must tend to restore life to maritime trade, to multiply the means of exchange with overseas countries, to replace the colonial outlets which we have lost, to facilitate commercial relations with a liberal legislation."
"I don't want a Muslim as mayor of Antwerp. But I'm afraid that will happen sooner or later."
"Split is a city along the Adriatic Sea, the main port of Croatia's Dalmatia region and the only place in Europe that makes me feel like I am in California. It is a land of abundant food, great wines and bronzed women who look like goddesses."
"To further weaken Pale, I proposed that the Dayton agreement include a provision moving the Bosnian Serb capital to Banja Luka. MiloĹĄeviÄ seemed interested in this proposal but, to my surprise, IzetbegoviÄ demurred. Even though he hated the leadership in Pale, he seemed to think he could work with them, especially his old associate from the Bosnian Assembly, MomÄilo KrajiĹĄnik. Izetbegovic also saw value in keeping the capitals of the two entities close to each other so that Sarajevo remained the only important political center in Bosnia. He may also have feared that if the Bosnian Serb capital moved to Banja Luka, which is closer to Zagreb than Sarajevo, it would accelerate the permanent division of the country and strengthen TuÄman. Whatever IzetbegoviÄ's reasons for not wanting to close Pale, it was a mistake. The mountain town was solely a wartime capital, established by an indicted war criminal and his henchmen. It was the living symbol - and headquarter - of his organization. We should have pushed IzetbegoviÄ harder to agree to establish the Serb capital at Banja Luka. It would have made a big difference in the effort to implement the Dayton agreements."
"Some people told me that I shouldnât have the flag with me in Banja Luka because it might be seen as a provocation but I told them â this is a flag for all of us. Why should I make exception here? ... Carrying the national flag meant a lot to me. I feel like I am doing something for my country, and I have a flag with me whether I am abroad or in Bosnia and Herzegovina"
"Iâm still on my bike, trying to lose the eight pounds I gained in Tbilisi."
"Once located at the border between the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires, it combines Central European with more Oriental influences, and adds a style and spirit of its own. I can only put it one way: Belgrade is cool."
"I am Bosnian by nationality... [T]he fact that my mother gave birth to me at a hospital in Belgrade does not mean anything."
"Serbia is the ideal destination for anyone looking for an adventurous holiday, without any long-haul flights, and a love of meeting the locals. You get a real feeling of being in an exotic location, where the tectonic plates of Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism, alongside socialism and capitalism, have all collided in the past."
"Night falls in the capital of the former Yugoslavia, and music fills the air. Everywhere."
"This slightly disheveled air, combined with the city's vibrancy, fine restaurants, street cafes and northern European atmosphere, would make it an ideal place to spend a few days..."
"Remember the developments in Yugoslavia. Before that Yeltsin was lavished with praise, as soon as the developments in Yugoslavia started, he raised his voice in support of Serbs, and we couldn't but raise our voices for Serbs in their defense. I understand that there were complex processes underway there, I do. But Russia could not help raising its voice in support of Serbs, because Serbs are also a special and close to us nation, with Orthodox culture and so on. It's a nation that has suffered so much for generations. Well, regardless, what is important is that Yeltsin expressed his support. What did the United States do? In violation of international law and the UN Charter it started bombing Belgrade. It was the United States that let the genie out of the bottle. Moreover, when Russia protested and expressed its resentment, what was said? The UN Charter and international law have become obsolete. Now everyone invokes international law, but at that time they started saying that everything is outdated, everything has to be changed."
"Because the Russians, thanks to the second world war, have quite simply annexed the three Baltic States, taken a piece of Finland, a piece of Rumania, a piece of Poland, a piece of Germany and, thanks to a well thought-out policy composed of internal subversion and external pressure, have established Governments justifiably styled as Satellites, in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Tirana and East Berlin - I except Belgrade where the regime is unique thanks to the energy and courage of Marshal Tito."
"Mist, not smoke, rose from the water at the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers. This is the point where the biggest city in the Balkans began. Belgrade's origins lie in a Celtic settlement on a bluff with superb views across the plains. Today, the horizon is scarred with chimneys and tower blocks, but the drama of the location remains. Beneath the ridge, skeletal trees accompany the Sava to the point where it merges into, and amplifies, the artery of eastern Europe. As the Danube continues its stately progress towards the Black Sea, you can understand why the Romans, Slavs, Turks and Austrians took turns to command these heights. Nowadays, the gently decaying stratum of history known as Belgrade fortress, draped upon the high ground, is the preserve of tourists."
"City break- Belgrade: If you've seen Budapest and KrakĂłw, consider heading somewhere new in Eastern Europe. Belgrade is a fast-paced modern European capital, successfully banishing the shadows of war. The city's history has deprived it of the richness of historical buildings of other capitals, but it still boasts plenty of impressive leftovers from the Austro-Hungarian empire and a fascinating citadel with architectural influences from its many occupiers. A visit here is all about enjoying the modern architecture, dynamic atmosphere and excellent nightlife. Belgrade is best seen from the water - the city has a beautiful setting at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. If that's not enough to tempt you, the tourist office literature explains that Belgrade is a city of about two million people. More than half of them are women, renowned for their beauty, cleverness and unpredictability."
"Bucharest must have been a beautiful city once. It is now in a state of mouldering decay. The big houses on leafy boulevards look as if they have not been touched by a paintbrush for sixty years. The yards are choked with weeds. The pollution is stifling and it has stained every building in the city. After decades of oppression, however, the people of Romania now have a democracy, and the government is encouraging significant legal reform. Today's students are engaging and fluent in English. Their confidence bespeaks an optimism that Romania's democracy will succeed and that Bucharest, once heralded as the Paris of the Balkans, will flower again."
"To this and other disasters, Romanians reacted (and still react) with glum jokes: Bucharest became Ceaushwitz, Ceaushima, Paranopolis; the dynasty that ruled them represented socialism in one family. But gallows themselves were less evident than gallows humor."
"At the confluence of East and West, Bucharest rose above its communist past into a city whose historical influences are reflected in the contrasting architectural fusion, a traditional-meets-modern outlook, and a stream of social happenings."
"Bucharest (or Bucuresci, pron. Bukureshti), the capital of Wallachia and of the whole of Rumania, already numbers amongst the great cities of Europe. Next to Constantinopole and Buda-Pest, it is the most populous town of South-eastern Europe, and its inhabitants fondly speak of it as the "Paris of the Orient." The town not very long since was hardly more than a collection of villages, very picturesque from a distance on account of numerous towers and glittering domes rising above the surrounding verdure, but very unpleasant within. Bucharest has been transformed rapidly with the increasing wealth of its inhabitants. It may boast now of wide and clean streets, bounded by fine houses, of public squares full of animation, and of well-kept parks, and fully deserves now its sobriquet of the "joyful city.""
"One sixth of Bucharest was demolished to make way for a Pyongyang-in-Romania that the ConducÄtor envisaged. The resulting masterpiece/disaster (*delete according to your achitectural preferences) covers 5 hectares and is roughly 1km wide and 5km long. All the damage caused by the bombing of World War II and the 1977 earthquake only equates to 18% of the destruction rained on Bucharest by CeauČescu's wrecking balls and bulldozers which levelled countless historic buildings, (250 hectares of the new city lies on what were considered to be historical districts), including churches, monasteries and synagogues and even a statue attributed to Gustave Eiffel. After the end product â well, not quite the end product since 1989 Revolution intervened before it could be properly finished â has been christened 'CeauČima', a contraction of 'CeauČescu's Hiroshima' by the locals."
"I came to Bucharest with a troupe of conquering heroes and I leave here with a troupe of gigolos and racketeers."