Vaclav Havel Quotes

There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side. - Vaclav Havel

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. - Vaclav Havel

There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them. Besides, to distrust words, and indict them for the horrors that might slumber unobtrusively within them - isn't this, after all, the true vocation of the intellectual? - Vaclav Havel

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight. - Vaclav Havel

Theater is there to search for questions. It doesn't give you instructions. - Vaclav Havel

The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. - Vaclav Havel

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

The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive. - Vaclav Havel

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