Vaclav Havel Quotes

• When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Freedom, Complete

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Tags in Government

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

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Meaning

• Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Purely

• Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Optimism, Hope

• 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.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Dissent

  Tags in Responsibility

• Genuine politics — even politics worthy of the name — the only politics I am willing to devote myself to — is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Politics, Service

  Tags in Human Rights, Compassion, Ethics, Responsibility, Duty, Community

• The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness, and in human responsibility.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Salvation, Responsibility, Heart

• Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

  Vaclav Havel

  Topics in Success, Work

  Tags in Good, Purpose

Vaclav Havel (29)

Birth:	5th October, 1936
Death:	18th December, 2011
Nationality:	Czech
Profession:	Essayist, Poet, Politician, Playwriter

About

Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. Havel was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally.

Related Authors

• Isaac Asimov
• Adrienne Rich
• Audre Lorde
• Gabriel Zaid
• Leza Lowitz
• Frederik Pohl
• Christa Wolf
• Harlan Ellison
• Harry Mathews
• Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 22nd November

Births

• 1744 - Abigail Adams
• 1980 - Shawn Fanning
• 1932 - Robert Francis Vaughn
• 1934 - Nicolas Hardy Walter
• 1986 - Oscar Pistorius

Deaths

• 1918 - Randolph Bourne
• 1943 - Lorenz Hart
• 1774 - Robert Clive
• 1962 - Rene Coty
• 1997 - Michael Hutchence