Prague Winter Quotes

“I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems -- personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to every thing that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not a first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“I wonder,” wrote Eleanor Roosevelt, “whether we have decided to hide behind neutrality? It is safe, perhaps, but I am not always sure it is right to be safe. . . . Every time a nation which has known freedom loses it, other free nations lose something, too.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter

“People everywhere, including the United States, are still prone to accept stereotypes, eager to believe what we want to believe (for example, on global warming) and anxious to await while others take the lead--seeking in vain to avoid both responsibility and risk. When trouble arises among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but left in the closet when clouds threaten.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“What fascinates me—and what serves as a central theme of this book—is why we make the choices we do. What separates us from the world we have and the kind of ethical universe envisioned by someone like Havel? What prompts one person to act boldly in a moment of crisis and a second to seek shelter in the crowd? Why do some people become stronger in the face of adversity while others quickly lose heart? What separates the bully from the protector? Is it education, spiritual belief, our parents, our friends, the circumstances of our birth, traumatic events, or more likely some combination that spells the difference? More succinctly, do our hopes for the future hinge on a desirable unfolding of external events or some mysterious process within?”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“There is a lesson in [Terezín] for those who conduct inspections in our day, whether in prisons, sweatshops, refugee camps, polling places, or nuclear facilities: do not trust––push; control your own schedule; do your homework. Remember the adage that a little knowledge can be dangerous. The truth is more likely to be served by a canceled or aborted inspection than by a whitewash.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“The Nazis' entrance upon the European stage did not, at first, alarm the British. After all, under the Versailles treaty, the size of the German army and navy was limited and the defeated country was forbidden to maintain air force. The wake-up bell began sounding only when, in March 1935, Hitler renounced the treaty and declared that his country would indeed rebuild its military. The following year, when Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, Britons were unsettled to learn that his army was already three times the legal size and that his air force, or Luftwaffe, would surpass their own.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“It would be good news indeed if people were behaving unnaturally when, under the stress of wartime conditions, they exhibited more cruelty than compassion and more cowardice than courage; or if those who rushed to salute Hitler and Stalin had first been twisted into something other than “themselves.” In saying this, I do not intend to leap into a philosophical or still less a theological discussion of human character. There is no need to go beyond what we know and have seen. Given the events described in this book, we cannot help but acknowledge the capacity”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Returning to Washington,FDR declared that Yalta Conference had put and end to the kind of balance-of-power divisions that had long marred global politics. His assessment echoed Woodrow Wilson's idealistic and equally inaccurate claims at the end of World War I. In London, Churchill told his cabinet that "poor Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don't think I'm wrong about Stalin." Soviet-British friendship, Churchill maintained, "would continue as long as Stalin was in charge.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“De ware schuldige is niet degene die zich gedwongen ziet een dergelijke keuze te maken; de schuld ligt bij degenen die de omstandigheden hebben geschapen waarin zulke keuzes moeten worden gemaakt".”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“In A Man With a Pipe, my brother observed that although my father had been seen as intellectual and my mother more a creature of temperament, she had often been the more levelheaded of the two. In sum, we miss them as we love them, equally and always.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Two months earlier, speaking at Westminster College in Missouri, Winston Churchill had declared that an Iron Curtain was descending across Europe.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Known throughout his career for penetrating insights and a lack of romanticism, he wrote that “one of humanity’s oldest and most recalcitrant human dilemmas” consists of the choice between “a limited collaboration with evil, in the interests of its ultimate mitigation” and “an uncompromising, heroic but suicidal resistance to it.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Chamberlain was too timid to take that advice, but he was not entirely blind to the deepening danger. “Is it not positively horrible,” he wrote, “to think that the fate of hundreds of millions depends on one man, and he is half mad? I keep racking my brains to try and devise some means of averting a catastrophe.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Among the nation’s early rulers was Václav (in English, Wenceslas), a devout Christian who incurred resentment among the pagan nobility due to his kindness toward the poor.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“scholar,” wrote my father, “inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror—what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of . . . identity.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“When trouble arise among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but felt in the closet when clouds threaten.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“When, in May, tensions reached a high point, London warned Berlin that if it attacked Czechoslovakia and the French were embroiled as well, "His Majesty's Government could not guarantee that they would not be forced by circumstances to become involved also". Ar the same time, English officials were telling their counterparts in Paris that they were "not disinterested" in Czechoslovakia's fate. I learned in the course of my own career that British diplomats are trained to write in with precision; so when a double negative is employed, the intent, usually, is not to clarify an issue but to surround it with fog.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Po celý život jsem hledala lék na všechny druhy životních problémů – osobních, společenských, politických, globálních. Jsou mi hluboce podezřelí lidé, kteří nabízejí jednoduchá řešení, něco tvrdí s naprostou jistotou nebo si činí nárok na výhradní vlastnictví pravdy. Stejně skepticky pohlížím na všechny, podle nichž je všechno tak složité a členité, že se v tom nemůžeme vyznat, a vše je tak mnohostranné, že se můžeme celý život den co den hnát za poznáním, a přitom nic nevědět jistě. Jsem přesvědčena, že když pravdu spatříme, poznáme ji, jenom se tak třeba nestane okamžitě a bez úsilí o hlubší poznání. Je tomu tak proto, že cíl, k němuž směřujeme, a dobro, v něž doufáme, nepřicházejí jako nějaká závěrečná odměna, ale jsou skrytým společníkem našeho hledání. Odpověď na otázku, proč jsme tady, nám nedá to, co najdeme. Je skryta v důvodu, proč nemůžeme přestat hledat.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“The historian’s job is to sift through such narratives and separate truth from fiction. Frequently, however, facts are redesigned to fit a pattern that conforms to the author’s sensibility at the time the writing is done. That is why the past seems constantly to change. “A scholar,” wrote my father, “inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror—what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of . . . identity.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not at first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Odpověď na otázku, proč jsme tady, nám nedá to, co najdeme. Je skryta v důvodu, proč nemůžeme přestat hledat.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Let us recall the boys and girls who had the nerve to write poetry and create works of art, and the adults who cared enough about life to debate philosophy, treat the ill and share their meager belongings all in a prison expressly designed to crush their spirit.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Communists, like the Nazis, were manipulating the press, smearing political rivals, demanding total loyalty from their members, and threatening anyone who stood in their way.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“A U.S. serviceman, standing nearby, was not so content. He yelled at the Czechs to stop. “The war is over, so halt your bullying!” he shouted. Some of his buddies agreed. That was too much for Hana. “How dare you?” she demanded of the American. “Where in the States are you from, anyway?” “Mississippi,” he said. “Miss-iss-ip-pi?” said Hana, drawing out the syllables sarcastically. “I see. So you’ve come all the way from Miss-iss-ip-pi to tell us in Czech-o-slo-vakia how we should treat our traitorous Nazi scum, our prisoners. You find it too much if we humiliate those dregs of humanity by making them sing Czech folk tunes? Where have you been all this time? Do you know what they have done? Do you know they tortured and killed millions? Or haven’t you heard? Or maybe,” said Hana, drawing a deep breath, “you sympathize with them because you float dead Negroes down your river?” Her words caused a commotion: furious and indignant soldiers gathered round; Hana’s own phrase was thrown back at her: “How dare you?” Another American intervened. “She’s absolutely right,” he said. “I’ve just come from those camps where we’ve been liberating the inmates. You should see it. Besides, these Germans are not being harmed in any way.” Turning to the first soldier, he said, “Let’s you and I keep out of it, okay?”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“In recognition of his accomplishments, von Braun was publicly congratulated by President John F. Kennedy, whose older brother, Joseph Jr., had died while on a 1944 bombing mission against a doodlebug launch site in France.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“In April 1945, immediately before surrendering the construction site, the Germans locked 1,046 of the workers into a barn and burned them alive.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“The Chamberlain government was slow to realize that the führer was determined to remain indignant. Denied a reasonable ground of complaint, he would quickly invent an unreasonable one.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Chamberlain could also be philosophical about the führer’s coarse rhetoric and bullying, which he ascribed to poor breeding. However, the prime minister could not imagine anyone intentionally causing a second world war.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“Henlein was motivated less by Nazi ideology than by the lure of power and fame. His skill as a politician stemmed from his gift for lying with apparent sincerity”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948