Man is in fact nailed down - like Christ on the Cross - to a grid of paradoxes . . . he balances between the torment of not knowing his mission and the joy of carrying it out, between nothingness… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
I am convinced that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power,… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
“For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.” — Václav Havel Copy Share Image
Hope is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work have a meaning. — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
If by believing you mean praying to an anthropomorphic deity who created the world and half controls it and half observes it, then I… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
A person who has been seduced by the consumer value system, whose identity is dissolved in an amalgam of the accouterments trappings of mass… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost. — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
Sober perseverance is more effective than enthusiastic emotions, which are all too capable of being transferred, with little difficulty, to something different each day. — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
It's not true that you should first think up an idea for a better world and only then "put it into practice," but, rather,… — Vaclav Havel Copy Share Image
