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English is the 'language of liberty' for nations emerging from years of cultural oppression.
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
English
Liberty
Nations
Language
Years
Emerging
Oppression
Cultural
More quotes by Vaclav Havel
Truth is not merely what we are thinking, but also why, to whom and under what circumstances we say it.
Vaclav Havel
Let us admit that most of us writers feel an essential aversion to politics. By taking such a position, however, we accept the perverted principle of specialization, according to which some are paid to write about the horrors of the world and human responsibility and others to deal with those horrors and bear the human responsibility for them.
Vaclav Havel
Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness a more humane society will not emerge.
Vaclav Havel
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.
Vaclav Havel
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.
Vaclav Havel
A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in systems cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness.
Vaclav Havel
People, your Government has returned to you!
Vaclav Havel
Speaking about myself, I've been pleasantly surprised that my older plays are still being performed. Most important is that they still have something to say to today's audience, in particular the young people who enjoy my plays. That's the best I could hope for, that the plays aren't single-use products of one era.
Vaclav Havel
Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.
Vaclav Havel
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
Vaclav Havel
I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.
Vaclav Havel
I think its important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.
Vaclav Havel
Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent in the face of evil or violence silence merely encourages them.
Vaclav Havel
There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them.
Vaclav Havel
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than 10 military divisions.
Vaclav Havel
I am convinced that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time build a state that is-regardless of how unscientific this may sound to the ears of a political scientist-humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural.
Vaclav Havel
Every consession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept.
Vaclav Havel
I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me.
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
If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Vaclav Havel
