Simon Masters > Simon's Quotes

“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

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it”
― Vaclav Havel

“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 is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work have a meaning.”
― Vaclav Havel

“I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.”
― Vaclav Havel

“The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.”
― Vaclav Havel

“Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. ”
― Vaclav Havel

“You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”
― Vaclav Havel

“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, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala

“Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.”
― Václav Havel

“Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.”
― 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 absurdity.”
― Václav Havel

“All human suffering concerns each human being”
― Vaclav Havel

“There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”
― Vaclav Havel, Summer Meditations