Vaclav Havel Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hope, Heart, Thankful To God

  91 Copy quote

• Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.

  Vaclav Havel

  Running, Men, He Man

  101 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  War, Lying, Past

  64 Copy quote

• It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspiring, Success, Vision

  182 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Rights, People, Evil

  122 Copy quote

• Courage means going against majority opinion in the name of the truth.

  Vaclav Havel

  Courage, Mean, Names

  12 Copy quote

• Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspirational, Powerful, Acting

  76 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Thinking, Soul, Mind

  60 Copy quote

• Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Hatred, And Love

  "Reverently and Defiantly, Czechs Honor Velvet Revolution's Anniversary" by Rick Lyman, www.nytimes.com. November 17, 2014.

  42 Copy quote

• 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

  Responsibility, Careers, Patriotism

  "The Power of the Powerless". Book by Václav Havel, 1979.

  19 Copy quote

• We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.

  Vaclav Havel

  Dream, Reality, Vision

  52 Copy quote

• Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

  Vaclav Havel

  Motivation, Hero, Succeed

  71 Copy quote

• 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

  Hero, Men, Tragedy

  "Letters to Olga". Book by Vaclav Havel, 1988.

  32 Copy quote

• 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

  Wise, Confusing, Language

  57 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Helping Others, People, Needs

  "The Language of Hatred, Increasingly Normalized by Trump" by Michael Gerson, www.realclearpolitics.com. May 2, 2017.

  63 Copy quote

• 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

  Peace, Responsibility, Names

  80 Copy quote

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

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspirational, Revolution, Spheres

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Lying, Exercise, Rights

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

  53 Copy quote

• When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hero, Truth Is, Given

  10 Copy quote

• Someone who does not draw strength from himself and who is incapable of finding the meaning of his life within himself will...seek the map to his own orientation somewhere outside himself-in some ideology, organization, or society, and then, however active he may appear to be, he is merely waiting, depending. He waits to see what others will do, or what roles they will assign to him, and he depends on them-and if they don't do anything or if they botch things, he succumbs to disillusion, despair, and ultimately, resignation.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspirational, Strength, Organization

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Inspiring, Dream, Hope

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

  57 Copy quote

• 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.

  11 Copy quote

• Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.

  Vaclav Havel

  Excuse, Individual, Capable

  "Vaclav Havel’s Human Rights Legacy an Inspiration". www.amnesty.org. December 21, 2011.

  28 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

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