216 Quotes by Vaclav Havel

A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in “systems” cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness.

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?

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

In my opinion, theater shouldn’t give advice to citizens.

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.

Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It’s just that it’s incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed.

I think it's important for one to take a certain distance from oneself.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have. By disrupting that order. A way of surprising.

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.