Václav Havel quotes - page 3

Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, essayist, and political leader who became the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. A prominent dissident, he was instrumental in the peaceful Velvet Revolution that ended communist rule in his country. He is remembered as a champion of human rights, democracy, and freedom. Here are 164 of his quotes:

My dear fellow citizens, For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.

Václav Havel

There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. . . .

Václav Havel

It's not hard to stand behind one's successes. But to accept responsibility for one's failures... that is devishly hard!

Václav Havel

Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state which calls itself a workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. Our obsolete economy is wasting the little energy we have available.

Václav Havel

This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique ... something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.

Václav Havel

You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.

Václav Havel

We introduced a new model of behavior: don't get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight "only" for those concrete causes, and be prepared to fight for them unswervingly, to the end. In other words, don't get mixed up in backroom wheeling and dealing, but play an open game.

Václav Havel

It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.

Václav Havel

We have discovered that what a year ago seemed to be a neglected house is essentially a ruin. This is not a pleasant fact, and it is not surprising that all of us are rather annoyed and disappointed about it.

Václav Havel

Hope is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work have a meaning.

Václav Havel

Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it.

Václav Havel

I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.

Václav Havel

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.

Václav Havel

All human suffering concerns each human being.

Václav Havel

I also appeal to those who have already done most of their work for society. I hope that the changes you awaited or worked for for so long will bring joy and satisfaction into your lives. We need your experience, your wisdom and your love.

Václav Havel

I think the Anthropic Cosmological Principle brings to us an idea perhaps as old as humanity itself: that we are not at all just an accidental anomaly, the microscopic caprice of a tiny particle whirling in the endless depth of the universe. Instead, we are mysteriously connected to the entire universe, we are mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is mirrored in us.

Václav Havel

It is clearly necessary to invent organizational structures appropriate to the present multicultural age. But such efforts are doomed to failure if they do not grow out of something deeper, out of generally held values.

Václav Havel

Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.

Václav Havel

Full freedom of speech and expression prevails in our country, and freedom of assembly and association is guaranteed.

Václav Havel

This is related to the crisis, or to the transformation, of science as the basis of the modern conception of the world. The dizzying development of this science, with its unconditional faith in objective reality and its complete dependency on general and rationally knowable laws, led to the birth of modern technological civilization. It is the first civilization in the history of the human race that spans the entire globe and firmly binds together all human societies, submitting them to a common global destiny.

Václav Havel

I think that it is my duty today to remind you as well of the good things that have happened, accomplishments that a year ago we could scarcely have imagined.

Václav Havel

The previous regime - armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology - reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone.

Václav Havel