“True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?”

— Václav Havel

Letter to Husák

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?" by Václav Havel?

Václav Havel 126

playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of … 1936–2011

Related quotes

“Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“Like the calm still surface water that reflects the moon and a flying bird, true living calmness is the condition of our mind that reflects all things clearly. This is our original and natural state. By understanding these principles, we can acquire true living calmness.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

7: Living calmness
Ki Sayings (2003)

“Be calm. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 126)

“Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee. This is true”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

"Life's Mystery", reported in Charlotte Fiske Rogé, The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song (1832), p. 544.

“Be calm. Be Zen. You are Buddha.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

“This violence is a calm that disturbs you.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

“It is too late to try to calm the mind after you take up the sword. First you must calm the mind and then take up the sword.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

50
Ki Sayings (2003)
Context: The purpose of ki-aikido is not self-defence; that is a mere by product. It is far more important to learn to control the mind and body. It is too late to try to calm the mind after you take up the sword. First you must calm the mind and then take up the sword. When you raise the sword up overhead, do not cut your ki. Continue to calm the mind by half, half, half and create a living calmness in that infinite reduction. When practicing cutting with the sword, you will find infinitely more value in cutting just five to ten times with ki fully extended, than you would in cutting a thousand time with mere physical strength.