Quotes from Vaclav Havel

By the way, the representatives of power invariably come to terms with those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian motivations to them – a lust for power or fame or wealth – and thus they try, at least, to implicate them in their own world, the world of general demoralization.)

what else are parallel structures than an area where a different life can be lived, a life that is in harmony with its own aims and which in turn structures itself in harmony with those aims? . . .What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of a certain part of society…to rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the…totalitarian system?

Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.

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.

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.

NadÄ›je prostÄ› není optimismus. Není to pÃ…â"¢esvÄ›d?ení, že nÄ›co dobÃ…â"¢e dopadne, ale jistota, že má nÄ›co smysl – bez ohledu na to, jak to dopadne.

The real question is whether the brighter future is really always so distant. What if, on the contrary, it has been here for a long time already, and only our own blindness and weakness has prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it?

It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to the automatism of technological civilization and the industrial consumer society, for they, too, are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies.

Truth lies not only in what is said, but also in who says it, to whom, why, how and under what circumstances.

When civil society languishes, when the life of organizations and voluntary associations is curtailed, then sooner or later political parties will begin to languish as well, until, ultimately, they become degenerate ghettos whose only purpose is to elevate their members into positions of power.

True enough, order prevails.... What prevails is order without life. True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?

I am not interested in why man commits evil; I want to know why he does good.

It is largely up to the politicians which social forces they choose to liberate and which they choose to suppress, whether they rely on the good in each citizen or the bad. The former regime systematically mobilized the worst human qualities, like selfishness, envy, and hatred.

By the way, even the politicians who often anger me with their short-sightedness and their malice are not, for the most part, evil-minded. They are, rather, inexperienced, easily infected with the particularisms of the time, easily manipulated by suggestive trends and prevailing customs; often they are simply caught up, unwillingly, in the swirl of bad politics, and find themselves unable to extricate themselves because they are afraid of the risks this would entail.

In other words, if there is to be any chance at all of success, there is only one way to strive for decency, reason, responsibility, sincerity, civility, and tolerance, and that is decently, reasonably, responsibly, sincerely, civilly, and tolerantly.

I must emphasize and explain repeatedly the moral dimensions of all social life, and point out that morality is, in fact, hidden in everything. And this is true; whenever I encounter a problem in my work and try to get to the bottom of it, I always discover some moral aspect, be it apathy, unwillingness to recognize personal error or guilt, reluctance to give up certain positions and the advantages flowing from them, envy, an excess of self-assurance, or whatever.

The Communist state knew, better than the Czech-Californian philosopher, where the greatest danger to it lay; in the realm of the intellect and the spirit. That the state was less and less successful at doing so is another matter, which merely confirms how right it was to be afraid; for, despite all the bribes and prizes and titles thrown their way, the artists were among the first to rebel.

Ideology offers human beings the illusion of dignity and morals while making it easier to part with them.

knížka Podivná doba] Michnik: V existenci ateistických civilizací v?bec nev??ím. Dokud existuje civilizace, trvá i potÃ…â"¢eba metafyzického. Mohou existovat ateisté, ale nem?že existovat ateistická civilizace.

ÄŒlovÄ›k by se mÄ›l chovat tak, jak si myslí, že by se mÄ›li chovat vÅ¡ichni.

PÃ…â"¢irozenou nevýhodou demokracie je, že tÄ›m, kdo to s ní myslí poctivÄ›, nesmírnÄ› svazuje ruce, zatím co tÄ›m, kteÃ…â"¢í ji neberou vážnÄ›, umož?uje tém?? vÅ¡e.

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.

Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.

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.