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Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel Quotes

Former President of Czechoslovakia

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Famous Vaclav Havel Quotes

“I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. Hope is the feeling that life and work have a meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. Life without hope is an empty, boring, and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.”

IfsWorldWellsHeartEndsStatesFeelingsBigsHopeImagineMy HeartEmptyStriveBoringUselessNot SureSurroundImagine ThatOptimistPessimistWithout HopeI Am ThankfulThankful To GodUseless Life
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things.”

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Author:Vaclav Havel
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“There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.”

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Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
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“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.”

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“The kind of hope that I often think about…I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us, or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul It’s not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

ThinkingWorldMindWellsKindSoulStatesTurnsSituationParticularConvictionObservationCertaintyMake SenseDimensionsDependentState Of MindHaving Hope
Author:Vaclav Havel
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“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.”

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Author:Vaclav Havel
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“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.”

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Book:The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe
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“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.”

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Author:Vaclav Havel
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