1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Václav Havel

Václav Havel Quotes
page 2

Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, writer and former dissident, who served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs.

His educational opportunities having been limited by his bourgeois background, Havel first rose to prominence as a playwright. In works such as The Garden Party and The Memorandum, Havel used an absurdist style to criticize communism. After participating in the Prague Spring and being blacklisted after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he became more politically active and helped found several dissident initiatives, including Charter 77 and the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. His political activities brought him under the surveillance of the secret police and he spent multiple stints in prison, the longest being nearly four years, between 1979 and 1983.

Havel's Civic Forum party played a major role in the Velvet Revolution that toppled communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He assumed the presidency shortly thereafter, and was re-elected in a landslide the following year and after Slovak independence in 1993. Havel was instrumental in dismantling the Warsaw Pact and expanding NATO membership eastward. Many of his stances and policies, such as his opposition to Slovak independence, condemnation of the Czechoslovak treatment of Sudeten Germans after World War II, and granting of general amnesty to all those imprisoned under communism, were very controversial domestically. As such, at the end of his presidency, he enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home. Havel continued his life as a public intellectual after his presidency, launching several initiatives including the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, the VIZE 97 Foundation, and the Forum 2000 annual conference.

Havel's political philosophy was one of anti-consumerism, humanitarianism, environmentalism, civil activism, and direct democracy. He supported the Czech Green Party from 2004 until his death. He received numerous accolades during his lifetime including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, and the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. The 2012–2013 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. He is considered by some to be one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. The international airport in Prague was renamed to Václav Havel Airport Prague in 2012. Wikipedia  

✵ 5. October 1936 – 18. December 2011   •   Other names वैक्लेव हैवेल
Václav Havel photo
Václav Havel: 126   quotes 10   likes

Václav Havel Quotes

“Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.”

Václav Havel

Vaclav Havel’s human rights legacy an inspiration http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/vaclav-havel-s-human-rights-legacy-inspiration-2011-12-21 Amnesty International (21 December 2011)]

Change

“I also appeal to those who have already done most of their work for society. I hope that the changes you awaited or worked for for so long will bring joy and satisfaction into your lives. We need your experience, your wisdom and your love.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Love , Wisdom , Hope , Change

“Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.”

Václav Havel

Living in Truth (1986), An Anatomy of Reticence

Peace

“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.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage

“Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5

Life , Sadness , Suicide

“When a person tries to act in accordance with his conscience, when he tries to speak the truth, when he tries to behave like a citizen, even in conditions where citizenship is degraded, it won't necessarily lead anywhere, but it might. There's one thing, however, that will never lead anywhere, and that is speculating that such behavior will lead somewhere.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Introduction, p. xvi
Disturbing the Peace (1986)

Truth , Behavior , Personality

“I think the Anthropic Cosmological Principle brings to us an idea perhaps as old as humanity itself: that we are not at all just an accidental anomaly, the microscopic caprice of a tiny particle whirling in the endless depth of the universe. Instead, we are mysteriously connected to the entire universe, we are mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is mirrored in us.”

Václav Havel

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

Idea , Thinking , Universe

“People have passed through a very dark tunnel at the end of which there was a light of freedom. Unexpectedly they passed through the prison gates and found themselves in a square. They are now free and they don't know where to go.”

Václav Havel

Address at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; quoted in The Independent, London (22 March 1990)

People , Freedom , Light

“A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in "systems" cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 1 : Growing Up "Outside", p. 17

Hope

“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.”

Václav Havel

As quoted in "Václav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy" by Richard L. Stanger in Christian Century (11 April 1990)

Victory , Joy , Christ

“It is clearly necessary to invent organizational structures appropriate to the present multicultural age. But such efforts are doomed to failure if they do not grow out of something deeper, out of generally held values.”

Václav Havel

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

Age , Failure , Effort

“Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Communication , Cheating , Happiness

“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.”

Václav Havel book The Power of the Powerless

Living in Truth (1986), The Power of the Powerless

People , Question

“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 4 : Public Enemy

Way , Memory

“Sober perseverance is more effective than enthusiastic emotions, which are all too capable of being transferred, with little difficulty, to something different each day.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 111

Perseverance

“There used to be a time when this country's president could have delivered the same New Year's Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
Fortunately, that time has passed.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Time , Country

“Full freedom of speech and expression prevails in our country, and freedom of assembly and association is guaranteed.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Freedom , Country

“Without the constantly living and articulated experience of absurdity, there would be no reason to attempt to do something meaningful. And on the contrary, how can one experience one's own absurdity if one is not constantly seeking meaning?”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 114

“People, your government has returned to you!”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

People

“I think that it is my duty today to remind you as well of the good things that have happened, accomplishments that a year ago we could scarcely have imagined.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Imagination , Thinking

“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.”

Václav Havel book The Power of the Powerless

Living in Truth (1986), The Power of the Powerless

People , Lie , Way , Failure

“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.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Confidence , Forgiveness , Sense , Personality

“If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.”

Václav Havel

Letter to Husák

Feeling , Sense , Silence , Indifference

“My dear fellow citizens,
For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.
I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Lie , Country , Happiness

“I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage

Thinking

“The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.”

Václav Havel

Quoted in Amnesty International's essay "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute" http://www.artforamnesty.org/aoc/biog_havel.html

“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”

Václav Havel

Speech of October 1989, accepting a peace prize

“If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President.”

Václav Havel

Address to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London quoted in The Independent, London (24 March 1990)

Way

“One has to greatly admire the patience with which our society has come to terms with all the challenges of these dramatic times, the extent of which few of us could have anticipated in those heady, revolutionary days.”

Václav Havel

Farewell Address (2003)

Time , Patience

“I know we have still done very little, and that the main tasks still lie ahead of us. I would say that we have just completed a year of preparation in which the conditions for a new environment have been created.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Lie

“We are finding out that what looked like a neglected house a year ago is in fact a ruin.”

Václav Havel

Statement about the conditions in Czechoslovakia and other previously Soviet Bloc countries. Daily Telegraph London (3 January 1991)

Housing

“In late 1989, the profound transformation that took place in this country brought me here to Prague Castle. It all happened so suddenly that I did not even have time to properly consider whether or not I was up to the task, and I was sincerely of the opinion that I would just take it on for a few months until the first free elections.
Clearly, things turned out quite differently: I have now been here for more than thirteen years, if we discount the short break in the latter half of 1992.”

Václav Havel

Farewell Address (2003)

Time , Sincerity , Country

“Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.”

Václav Havel

Letter to the downthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubček (August 1969), as translated in Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 115

Hope , Time

“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.”

Václav Havel book The Power of the Powerless

Source: Living in Truth (1986), The Power of the Powerless

Truth , Star , Understanding , Time

“I believe that during the intervention of NATO in Kosovo there is an element nobody can question: the air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by a material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian: What is at stake here are the principles, human rights which have priority above state sovereignty. This makes it legitimate to attack the Yugoslav Federation, although without the United Nations mandate.”

Václav Havel

Interview for the French newspaper Le Monde (29 April 1999); this statement is considered the source of the term w:Humanitarian bombing", frequently used about the Kosovo War.

Question

“The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and … often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 3 : Facing the Establishment

Literature , Suffering

“It has become clear that the legacy of the past decades we have to cope with is even worse than we anticipated or could anticipate in the joyful atmosphere of those first weeks of freedom. New problems are emerging day by day, and we can see how interconnected they are, how long it takes to solve them, and how difficult it is to establish priorities.”

Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

Problem , Freedom , Past

“We introduced a new model of behavior: don't get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight "only" for those concrete causes, and be prepared to fight for them unswervingly, to the end. In other words, don't get mixed up in backroom wheeling and dealing, but play an open game.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 3 : Facing the Establishment, p. 83

Behavior , Game , Fight

“The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage

Way , Light

“It's not true that you should first think up an idea for a better world and only then "put it into practice," but, rather, through the fact of your existence in the world, you create the idea or manifest it — create it, as it were, from the "material of the world," articulate it in the "language of the world."”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 1 : Growing Up "Outside", p. 12

World , Idea , Thinking

“It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.”

Václav Havel

The Onassis Prize For Man and Mankind (1993)

Appearance

“The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning — in other words, of absurdity — the more energetically meaning is sought.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5

“None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 3 : Facing the Establishment

Way

“Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have — by disrupting that order — a way of surprising.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5

Way

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

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5

Life , People , Law

“I have had direct experience of this myself. Often, what the press wrote, or did not write, about a remark I made somewhere proved to be of a far greater consequence than the remark itself. Democratic choice in such cases ceases to be a choice between alternatives people are familiar with, and have personally tried, and becomes a choice between alternatives offered by those who run the media.”

Václav Havel

The Onassis Prize For Man and Mankind (1993)

People , Personality

“My dear friends, I bid you farewell as your President. I remain with you as your fellow citizen!”

Václav Havel

Farewell Address (2003)

“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.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 113

Spring

“Every concession 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.”

Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace

Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 5 : The Politics of Hope, p. 110