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

Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.

You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.