Quote

There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ryszard Kapuscinski
Age: 74 †
Born: 1932
Born: March 4
Died: 2007
Died: January 22
Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Photographer
Poet
Reporter
Translator
Writer
Pińsk
Differences
State
Polish
Hate
Russian
Experience
Patriotic
Power
Fundamental
States
Foreign
Always
Fundamentals
Difference

More quotes by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Image
Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
Photographing expresses human desire to preserve passing time. It is like a man struggling with time that elapses, and in general - a desire to preserve oneself.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
I'm trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
Amin hid nothing. Everybody knew everything. Yet the American Senate only introduced a resolution breaking off trade with Amin three months before his overthrow.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
Our job is like a baker's work - his rolls are tasty as long as they're fresh after two days they're stale after a week, they're covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Image
Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.
Ryszard Kapuscinski