All Václav Havel Quotes
- The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law. Becomes
- Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly… Adventure
- Human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world. These values are as powerful as they are because,… Accept
- It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs. Action
- Either we have hope within us or we don't It is a dimension of the soul, and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation… Dependent
- Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. Chance
- When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete. Complete
- I am convinced that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time build… Based
- The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse.… All
- Truth is not merely what we are thinking, but also why, to whom and under what circumstances we say it. Awareness
- We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Became
- It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern… Complained
- Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience. Acting
- The world is not divided into two types of being, one superior and the other merely surrounding it. Being, nature, the universe - they are… All
- 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… Alienate
- 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… Acts
- A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerally of everything human.… Action
- 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… Action
- 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… Abolition
- Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely… Contribution
- 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… Accepting
- Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses. Capable
- Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any… All
- I think its important for one to take a certain distance from oneself. Certain
- Man is in fact nailed down - like Christ on the Cross - to a grid of paradoxes . . . he balances between the… Balance