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.Collection: Power
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Hope
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.Collection: Peace
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.Collection: Sad
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.Collection: Hope
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.Collection: Government
When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.Collection: Freedom
Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.Collection: Chance
The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.Collection: Leadership
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.
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.
The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought.
Theater is there to search for questions. It doesn't give you instructions.
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.
It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
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.
I think it's important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.
There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.
But if I were to say who influenced me most, then I'd say Franz Kafka. And his works were always anchored in the Central European region.
I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.
Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.
Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.
If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.
Lying can never save us from another lie.
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.
Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.
The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.
Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
In my opinion, theater shouldn't give advice to citizens.
What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually.
Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.Collection: Running
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. Hope is the feeling that life and work have a meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.Collection: Hope
It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.Collection: Inspiring
Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to prosecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.Collection: War
Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent in the face of evil or violence; silence merely encourages them.Collection: Rights
Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Responsibility
Courage means going against majority opinion in the name of the truth.Collection: Courage
The kind of hope that I often think about…I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us, or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul It’s not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.Collection: Thinking
Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.Collection: Lying
We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.Collection: Dream
I do think Russian foreign policy is very savvy. There's a need for great caution because the Russians are able to discreetly blackmail countries.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Wise
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.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Helping Others
A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.Collection: Lying
Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found itCollection: Running