Vaclav Havel
11 quotes
Biography
Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003.
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."
"It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly."
"The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it."
"What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually."
"It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly."
"When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete."
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."