Václav Havel Quotes

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.

The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and … often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.

My dear friends, I bid you farewell as your President. I remain with you as your fellow citizen!

I think that it is my duty today to remind you as well of the good things that have happened, accomplishments that a year ago we could scarcely have imagined.

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 living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.

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.

La miglior resistenza al totalitarismo è semplicemente quella di
allontanarlo dalle nostre anime, dalla nostra realtà, dalla nostra terra, di
scacciarlo dall’umanità contemporanea. Il migliore aiuto per chi soffre sotto i regimi totalitari è quello di affrontare il male che il sistema totalitario rappresenta, dal quale trae la sua forza e del quale la sua «avanguardia» si nutre. Se non esiste una tale avanguardia, un germoglio estremista da cui possa svilupparsi, il sistema non avrà niente su cui appoggiarsi. Una riaffermata responsabilità umana è la barriera più naturale contro tutta l’irresponsabilità.

There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.

There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them — isn't this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual?

Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.