Vaclav Havel Quotes - Page 2

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• There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

  Vaclav Havel

  Stars, Hero, Political

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.78, Routledge

  45 Copy quote

• Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena.

  Vaclav Havel

  Motivational, Connections, Ability

  31 Copy quote

• We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

  Vaclav Havel

  World, Certain, Postmodern

  Vaclav Havel's Liberty Medal acceptance speech at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, www.aps.org. October 4, 1994.

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• Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.

  Vaclav Havel

  Identity, World, Way

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.31, Routledge

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• You may ask what kind of a republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane republic which serves the individual and which therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such it is impossible to solve any of our problems, human, economic, ecological, social, or political.

  Vaclav Havel

  Dream, Independent, People

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• The Declaration of Independence states that the Creator gave man the right to liberty. It seems man can realize that liberty only if he does not forget the One who endowed him with it.

  Vaclav Havel

  Men, Independence, Liberty

  Vaclav Havel's Liberty Medal acceptance speech at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, www.aps.org. October 4, 1994.

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• I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hope, Heart, Pessimist

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• Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, People, Support

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.43, Routledge

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• Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly.

  Vaclav Havel

  Government, Law, Moral

  57 Copy quote

• We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.

  Vaclav Havel

  Integrity, Different, Used

  1990 Speech, 1 Jan.

  7 Copy quote

• It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to that automatism of technological civilization and the industrial-consumer society, for they too are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in post-totalitarian societies.

  Vaclav Havel

  Civilization, People, Democracy

  Vaclav Havel, John Keane (2016). “The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe”, p.105, Routledge

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• Communism was overthrown by life, by thought, by dignity.

  Vaclav Havel

  Dignity, Communism

  6 Copy quote

• If by believing you mean praying to an anthropomorphic deity who created the world and half controls it and half observes it, then I am probably not a believer. But if you mean that it is not all accidental, that there is a mystery to existence, a deeper meaning, that I do believe in.

  Vaclav Havel

  Believe, Mean, Half

  7 Copy quote

• Human rights, human freedoms... and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world... while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God.

  Vaclav Havel

  Powerful, Patriotic, Rights

  "Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism" by Slavoj Zizek in London Review of Books, Volume 21, No. 21 (pp. 3-6), www.lrb.co.uk. October 28, 1999.

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• If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.

  Vaclav Havel

  Sad, Sympathy, Real

  Open letter to Dr. Gustáv Husák, Communist President, April 8, 1975.

  55 Copy quote

• Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness a more humane society will not emerge.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspirational, Revolution, Spheres

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• Every consession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept.

  Vaclav Havel

  Giving, Promise, Demand

  "Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala". Book by Václav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson. Chapter 5: "The Politics of Hope", p. 110, 1990.

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• The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin - and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.

  Vaclav Havel

  Truth, Power, Office

  "Living in Truth". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1986.

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• There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hero, Winning, Intelligent

  Disturbing the Peace ch. 5 (1986) (translation by Paul Wilson)

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• There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them.

  Vaclav Havel

  Doubt, Distrust, No Doubt

  "Words on Words". www.nybooks.com. January 18, 1990.

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• Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.

  Vaclav Havel

  Regret, Self Confidence, Pride

  New Year's Address to the Nation, Prague, January 01, 1990.

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• The previous regime ... reduced man to a means of production and nature to a tool of production. Thus it attacked both their very essence and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts in some monstrously huge, noisy, and stinking machine.

  Vaclav Havel

  War, Mean, Men

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• The question is wholly other, deeper and equally relevant to all: whether we shall, by whatever means, succeed in reconstituting the natural world as the true terrain of politics, rehabilitating the personal experience of human beings as the initial measure of things, placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human "I."

  Vaclav Havel

  Meaningful, Responsibility, Focus

  "Vaclav Havel's Dissident Criticism" by Peter Lawler, bigthink.com.

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• The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.

  Vaclav Havel

  Humility, Compassion, Depth

  1990 Speech, 1 Jan.

  8 Copy quote

• Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hope, Hero, Giving

  "Vaclav Havel Dead: The Quotes Of The Man Who 'Lived In Truth'" by Paul Vale, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk. December 18, 2011.

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