| "Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good." Vaclav Havel Sayings |
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| Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. Vaclav Havel |
| As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it. Vaclav Havel Sayings |
| Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. Vaclav Havel Quotations |
| Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for .success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. Vaclav Havel |
| Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out Vaclav Havel Remarks |
| 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 |
| 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 Quotes |
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| If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President. Vaclav Havel |
| 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 |
| Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. Vaclav Havel Sayings |
| None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events. Vaclav Havel |
| Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life. Vaclav Havel Remarks |
| The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning -- in other words, of absurdity --the more energetically meaning is sought. Vaclav Havel |
| The only salvation of the world today... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market. Vaclav Havel Remarks |
| The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning. Vaclav Havel |
| The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility. Vaclav Havel |
| The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness, and in human responsibility. Vaclav Havel Sayings |
| The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life but that it bothers him less and less. Vaclav Havel Quotes |
| The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. Vaclav Havel Remarks |
| There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side. Vaclav Havel |
| This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor. Vaclav Havel Adages |
| Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. Vaclav Havel Popular Quotes |
| You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. Vaclav Havel Quotes |
| You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. Vaclav Havel |
