Václav Havel Quotes

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

گاهی اوقات برای درک حقیقت باید به قعر تیره‌بختی ها برویم؛

Sono convinto che il modo migliore di affrontarli sia quello di studiarli senza pregiudizio, imparare da essi e resistergli, comportandosi in modo radicalmente differente; laddove tale differenza nasce da una continua lotta contro il male che essi incarnano con tanta chiarezza, e che, tuttavia, dimora ovunque e quindi anche in ognuno di noi.

We have discovered that what a year ago seemed to be a neglected house is essentially a ruin. This is not a pleasant fact, and it is not surprising that all of us are rather annoyed and disappointed about it.

The history of the human race has generated several papers articulating basic moral imperatives, or fundamental principles, of human coexistence that — maybe in association with concurring historical events — substantially influenced the fate of humanity on this planet. Among these historic documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — adopted fifty years ago today — holds a very special, indeed, unique position. It is the first code of ethical conduct that was not a product of one culture, or one sphere of civilization only, but a universal creation, shaped and subscribed to by representatives of all humankind. Since its very inception, the Declaration has thus represented a planetary, or global commitment, a global intention, a global guideline. For this reason alone, this exceptional document — conceived as a result of a profound human self-reflection in the wake of the horrors of World War II, and retaining its relevance ever since — deserves to be remembered today.

L'élément tragique pour l'homme moderne, ce n'est pas qu'il ignore
le sens de sa vie, mais que ça le dérange de moins en moins.

Every meaningful cultural act — wherever it takes place — is unquestionably good in and of itself, simply because it exists and because it offers something to someone. Yet can this value 'in itself' really be separated from 'the common good'? Is not one an integral part of the other from the start? Does not the bare fact that a work of art has meant something to someone — even if only for a moment, perhaps to a single person — already somehow change, however minutely, the overall condition for the better? ... Can we separate the awakening human soul from what it always, already is — an awakening human community?

Think of this: Hundreds of people today are doing things that not a single one of the them would have dared to do at the beginning of the Seventies. We are now living in a truly new and different situation. This is not because the government has become more tolerant; it simply had to get used to the new situation. It has had to yield to continuing pressure from below, which means pressure from all those apparently suicidal or exhibitionistic civic acts.

If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.

Classical modern science described only the surface of things, a single dimension of reality. And the more dogmatically science treated it as the only dimension, as the very essence of reality, the more misleading it became. Today, for instance, we may know immeasurably more about the universe than our ancestors did, and yet, it increasingly seems they knew something more essential about it than we do, something that escapes us.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

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.

Thực ra có gì chung giữa thế giới của con người thời trung cổ và thế giới của một cậu bé con? Tôi nghĩ chúng có một điểm chung cơ bản. Cả cậu bé và người nông dân đều gắn bó chặt chẽ với cái mà các nhà triết học gọi là “thế giới tự nhiên” hay “thế giới của cuộc sống” hơn đa phần những con người hiện đại. Họ chưa trở nên xa lạ với thế giới của kinh nghiệm thực tế của bản thân; với thế giới có buổi sáng và buổi chiều, có dưới (đất) và trên (trời), nơi mặt trời mọc mỗi ngày ở phía Đông rồi đi qua bầu trời và lặn ở phía Tây, nơi mà những khái niệm như “quê nhà” và “xứ lạ”, thiện và ác, đẹp và xấu, gần và xa, trách nhiệm và quyền lợi, còn là những cái gì đó sống động và rõ ràng

ricostruire il mondo naturale come vero terreno della politica, a riabilitare l’esperienza personale degli uomini come misura prima delle cose, ponendo la moralità sopra la politica e la responsabilità al di sopra dei nostri desideri, a dare significato alla comunità degli uomini, a restituire il contenuto al linguaggio umano, a ricostituire l’«Io»-uomo, autonomo, integrale, dignitoso come fulcro di tutta l’azione sociale, responsabile per noi stessi, perché siamo legati a qualcosa di più grande e capace di sacrificare qualcosa, in casi estremi anche tutto, della sua prosperosa e banale vita privata– quella «legge della quotidianità», come Jan Patocˇka era solita definirla– per il bene di ciò che dà significato alla vita.

In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.