V

Vaclav Havel

17 quotes

The quotes of Vaclav Havel have been shared, printed, and passed along for good reason. With equal ease, Vaclav Havel moved between Hope and Power, finding connections others missed. Browse 22 quotes by Vaclav Havel that cover ground from Hope, Power, Experience, Change, and Work. Here is a taste of their wisdom: "It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly."

“It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.”

— Vaclav Havel

Age

All Quotes by Vaclav Havel

“Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”

— Vaclav Havel

Hope

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

— Vaclav Havel

Sad

“What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually.”

— Vaclav Havel

Change

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

— Vaclav Havel

Experience

“If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.”

— Vaclav Havel

Change

“The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.”

— Vaclav Havel

Leadership

“When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.”

— Vaclav Havel

Freedom

“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.”

— Vaclav Havel

Government

“The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.”

— Vaclav Havel

Power

“Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.”

— Vaclav Havel

Good

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

— Vaclav Havel

Hope

“Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.”

— Vaclav Havel

Hope

“It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.”

— Vaclav Havel

Age

“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.”

— Vaclav Havel

Hope

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

— Vaclav Havel

Hope

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

— Vaclav Havel

Alone

“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.”

— Vaclav Havel

Peace