Quote

The cliché organizes life it expropriates people's identity it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.

Vaclav Havel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Law
Rulers
Life
Organize
People
Lawyer
Judge
Defense
Judging
Organizes
Identity
Ruler
Becomes
Clich

More quotes by Vaclav Havel

Image
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
Image
In any case, ideals are something we strive for they are somewhere on the horizon of our efforts they provide meaning and direction they are not, however, static quotas that we either fulfill or do not.
Vaclav Havel
Image
It's not hard to stand behind one's successes. But to accept responsibility for one's failures... that is devishly hard!
Vaclav Havel
Image
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations.
Vaclav Havel
Image
It is not enough to invent new machines, new regulations, or new institutions. We must understand differently and more perfectly the true purpose of our existence on this earth.
Vaclav Havel
Image
There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them.
Vaclav Havel
Image
Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It's just that it's incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed.
Vaclav Havel
Image
Truth is not merely what we are thinking, but also why, to whom and under what circumstances we say it.
Vaclav Havel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being, not just the body but also the soul.
Vaclav Havel
Image
There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.
Vaclav Havel
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.
Vaclav Havel
Image
Either we have hope within us or we don't It is a dimension of the soul, and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the World or observation of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.
Vaclav Havel
Image
I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.
Vaclav Havel
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.
Vaclav Havel
Image
Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.
Vaclav Havel
Image
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
Image
Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well, but the conviction that what you are doing makes sense, no matter how things turn out.
Vaclav Havel
Image
Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.
Vaclav Havel