Vaclav Havel

The world is not a machine, it is a mystery.

We live in a world where everything is possible, but nothing is certain.

The human mind is a dangerous weapon, if not guided by conscience.

The only way to save the world is to save ourselves.

The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience, but how he stands at times of controversy and challenge.

Tolerance is a good thing, but it has its limits. We cannot tolerate intolerance.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

The greater the power, the greater the danger of abuse.

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

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.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have—by disrupting that order—a way of surprising.

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.

Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.

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

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.

There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.

The only kind of revolution that works is one where people stop being afraid.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

The worst thing is not that the world is ruled by the wicked, but that it is ruled by the incompetent.

The more complete the lie, the more willingly people believe it.