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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

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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
True
Regulation
Earth
Differently
Enough
Perfectly
Must
Machines
Institutions
Existence
Purpose
Regulations
Understand
Invent

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Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.
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We are the first atheistic and global, all-embracing civilization. You cannot tell whether you are sitting at an airport in Hong Kong or in a hotel in Alaska. Everything is instrumentalized, subjected to a short-term purpose. It is quite possible that in such a situation any sense of a deeper meaning gets lost.
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Our social and economic statistics are telling us what we already know in our hearts: we have created a world that works for only a few. To change this, we must learn to act toward each other and our environment in profoundly different ways.
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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.
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Communism was overthrown by life, by thought, by dignity.
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The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension.
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The truth is not simply what you think it is it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.
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Modern science kills God and takes his place on the vacant throne. Science is the sole legitimate arbiter of all relavent truth.
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Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
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We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.
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Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.
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Barack Obama is president of a superpower and I'm a citizen of a small state.
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Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.
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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.
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People, your Government has returned to you!
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Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
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I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me.
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The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and ... often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.
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Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another.
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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.
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