Heroes for a Better World

Vaclav Havel
(1936-2011)

Last President of Czechoslovakia, 1st of Czech Republic
1990 Prize For Freedom
1990 International Simón Bolívar Prize
2003 Presidential Medal of Freedom
2003 Ambassador of Conscience Award
2003 Gandhi Peace Prize

birthdate: October 5
birthplace:
Prague, Czechoslovakia

QUOTES

CITIZENSHIP
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

COMMUNITY
Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

CREATIVITY
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.

FREEDOM
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

HOPE
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.

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.

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.

LIVING A LIFE OF COMPASSION
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.

WE CAN CREATE A BETTER WORLD
There are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. Many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying, and exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble.

 


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