Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel; 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer, philosopher, dissident, and statesman. From 1989 to 1992, he served as the last president of Czechoslovakia. He then served as the first president of the Czech Republicafter the Czech–Slovak split. Within Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth5 October 1936
CityPrague, Czech Republic
hopeful imagine strive
I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me.
responsibility important climate
Technological measures are important, but equally important is... a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility.
might causes strive
There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.
dream independent people
You may ask what kind of a republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane republic which serves the individual and which therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such it is impossible to solve any of our problems, human, economic, ecological, social, or political.
hero truth-is given
When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.
party people political
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, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.
unique historical demand
This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique...something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.
memories party adventure
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 we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.
humility men thinking
Man is not an omipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.
law judging people
The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.
play president way
If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President.
country calm oppression
True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?
real mean men
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 ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.
lying exercise rights
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.