“There is only one Art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth.”
"Six Asides About Culture"
Living in Truth (1986)
Context: There is only one Art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. … Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.
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Václav Havel 126
playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of … 1936–2011Related quotes
As quoted in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2014), p.31
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)
Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner Reproduzierbarkeit The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 33.
Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.
The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613)
Quote from The Old Masters of Belgium and Holland - Les Maitres d’Autrefois, 'Preface', Eugène Fromentin; ed. Mary Caroline Robbins, publisher: J. R. Osgood and company, Boston 1882, p. iv
“The profundity of truth varies with the seeing power of the spirit which seeks it.”
The Science of Character (1929), as translated by W. H. Johnston, p. 18
2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Context: We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.
On being considered an authentic Zimbabwean writer in “Petina Gappah interview: ‘I’ve written a very Zimbabwean story – we keep a lot of family secrets’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/05/petina-gappah-interview-ive-written-very-zimbabwean-story in The Guardian (2015 Sep 5)