“We have discovered that what a year ago seemed to be a neglected house is essentially a ruin.
This is not a pleasant fact, and it is not surprising that all of us are rather annoyed and disappointed about it.”

—  Václav Havel

New Year's Address to the Nation (1991)

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 "We have discovered that what a year ago seemed to be a neglected house is essentially a ruin. This is not a pleasant f…" by Václav Havel?
Václav Havel photo
Václav Havel 126
playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of … 1936–2011

Related quotes

Václav Havel photo

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

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

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

Winston S. Churchill photo

“What is the dominant fact of the situation? Germany is arming…Germany is arming particularly in the air. … it seems of the utmost importance, not only that we should lose no time in putting ourselves in an adequate position of defence but, that we should keep close and friendly relations with other great Powers of a friendly character who have not fallen into the error which has overtaken us of late years, of neglecting the essentials of our own security.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1934/jul/13/foreign-office#column_734 in the House of Commons (13 July 1934)
The 1930s

Julia Glass photo

“I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than fatally disappointed.”

Julia Glass (1956) Novelist, journalist, editor

Source: I See You Everywhere

Luc Besson photo

“Life was given to us a billion years ago. What have we done with it?”

Luc Besson (1959) French film director, writer, and producer

Lucy (2014)

José Ortega Y Gasset photo

“Every life is, more or less, a ruin among whose debris we have to discover what the person ought to have been.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist
Robert Jordan photo

“If you plan for the worst, all surprises are pleasant.”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

Gaul
(15 September 1992)
Variant: Always plan for the worst, that way all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Source: The Shadow Rising

L. Frank Baum photo

“As the years pass, and we look back on something which, at the time, seemed unbelievably discouraging and unfair, we come to realize that, after all, God was at all times on our side. The eventual outcome was, we discover, by far the best solution for us, and what we thought should have been to our best advantage, would in reality have been quite detrimental.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Letter to his eldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum (September 1918)
Letters and essays

“The fact that seems to underlie this exhortation is that we become what we think about.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Everyday Wisdom (1927)

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“I have a strong belief that there is a danger of the public opinion of this country undergoing a reaction from the Cobdenic doctrines of 30 or 40 years ago, and believing that it is our duty to take everything we can, to fight everybody, and to make a quarrel of every dispute. That seems to me a very dangerous doctrine, not merely because it might incite other nations against us—though that is not a consideration to be neglected, for the kind of reputation we are at present enjoying on the Continent of Europe is by no means pleasant, and by no means advantageous; but there is a much more serious danger, and that is lest we should overtax our strength. However strong you may be, whether you are a man or a nation, there is a point beyond which your strength will not go. It is madness; it ends in ruin if you allow yourselves to pass beyond it.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1898/feb/08/the-queens-speech-reported-by-the-lord in the House of Lords (8 February 1898)
1890s

Conrad Aiken photo

“One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.
He sings of a house he lived in long ago.
It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;
The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Related topics