As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

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 Quote

Lying can never save us from another lie.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

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 Quote

The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

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 Quote

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 Quote

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

When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.
- Vaclav Havel Quote

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
- Vaclav Havel Quote