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In my opinion, theater shouldn't give advice to citizens.
Vaclav Havel
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Vaclav Havel
Age: 75 †
Born: 1936
Born: October 5
Died: 2011
Died: December 18
Director
Dissident
Essayist
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Leader
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Praha
Vaclav Havel
Advice
Citizens
Opinion
Give
Giving
Shouldn
Theater
More quotes by Vaclav Havel
The salvation of the world lies in the human heart.
Vaclav Havel
As in everything else, I must start with myself. That is: in all circumstances try to be decent, just, tolerant, and understanding, and at the same time try to resist corruption and deception. In other words, I must do my utmost to act in harmony with my conscience and my better self.
Vaclav Havel
Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.
Vaclav Havel
It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.
Vaclav Havel
The world is not divided into two types of being, one superior and the other merely surrounding it. Being, nature, the universe - they are all one infinitely complex and mysterious metaorganism of which we are but a part, though a unique one.
Vaclav Havel
Communism was overthrown by life, by thought, by dignity.
Vaclav Havel
We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.
Vaclav Havel
Human rights, human freedoms... and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world... while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God.
Vaclav Havel
Man is a part of the world, and his spirit is part of the spirit of the world. We are merely a peculiar mode of Being, a living atom within it, or, rather, a cell that, if sufficiently open to itself and its own mystery, can also experience the mystery, the will, the pain, and the hope of the world.
Vaclav Havel
If I have accomplished anything good, then it's mainly because I've been driven by the need to know whether I can accomplish things I'm not sure I have the capacity for.
Vaclav Havel
A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clearsighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerality of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.
Vaclav Havel
Man is in fact nailed down - like Christ on the Cross - to a grid of paradoxes. He balances between the torment of not knowing his mission and the joy of carrying it out, between nothingness and meaningfulness. And like Christ, he is in fact victorious by virtue of his defeats.
Vaclav Havel
The only salvation of the world today... is the rapid dissemination of the basic values of the West, that is, the ideas of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market.
Vaclav Havel
Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly.
Vaclav Havel
Though my heart may be left of centre, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy... This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that can lead to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself.
Vaclav Havel
Sober perseverance is more effective than enthusiastic emotions, which are all too capable of being transferred, with little difficulty, to something different each day.
Vaclav Havel
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.
Vaclav Havel
It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.
Vaclav Havel
Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics.
Vaclav Havel
I am in favor of [actions] that have authenticity, roots, originality, verve, balance, taste, communicativeness, challenge, relevance to their time-in short, things that make sense.
Vaclav Havel
