“The existence of a higher authority than man himself simply began to get in the way of human aspirations.”

— Václav Havel

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)
Context: Modern anthropocentrism inevitably meant that He who allegedly endowed man with his inalienable rights began to disappear from the world: He was so far beyond the grasp of modern science that he was gradually pushed into a sphere of privacy of sorts, if not directly into a sphere of private fancy — that is, to a place where public obligations no longer apply. The existence of a higher authority than man himself simply began to get in the way of human aspirations.

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Václav Havel 126

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

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“The existence of a higher authority than man himself simply began to get in the way of human aspirations.”

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