Quotessence
Home / Authors / Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel Quotes

Former President of Czechoslovakia

Filter quotes by topic

AllWorldHumansIfsHeroPeopleHeroicWayMenThinkingDoeLyingResponsibilityWellsStatesRightsCitizensHeartHuman RightsKnowsCountry

Famous Vaclav Havel Quotes

“It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to that 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 post-totalitarian societies.”

PeopleWayUsedDemocracyCivilizationOffersMethodFundamentalsTraditionalPostsConsumersOppositionSubtleBrutalConsumerismTechnologicalRefinedOverconsumptionParliamentaryParliamentary Democracy
Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
Create image

“The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better. Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.”

PeopleWayDoeJobsLawInstitutionsLawyerImperfectBetter Life
Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
Create image

“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 master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.”

PeopleWayHumansDoeFactsLyingHumanityIndividualHuman BeingsSupportRecordsPlansMastersCapableCompelledAlienationDegeneratesInvoluntaryDegeneration
Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWayWellsDoeStatesLyingOpinionRightsDangerArmsCitizensFitExerciseRelationCompetitionDenyNeighborInternalsCold WarArbitraryPublic OpinionAbolitionSuppressionBasic Rights
Author:Vaclav Havel
Create image

“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.”

PeopleKnowsHumansWellsPoliticalHuman BeingsPartyImportanceLabelsPostsPolitical PartiesTotalitarianism
Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
Create image

“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.”

PeopleHumansWellsKindMayProblemDreamPoliticalTurnsAsksIndividualSocialImpossibleEconomicLet MeIndependentDemocraticSolveRepublicProsperousHumaneEcologicalWell Rounded
Author:Vaclav Havel
Create image