Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel; 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer, philosopher, dissident, and statesman. From 1989 to 1992, he served as the last president of Czechoslovakia. He then served as the first president of the Czech Republicafter the Czech–Slovak split. Within Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays, and memoirs...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth5 October 1936
CityPrague, Czech Republic
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I can imagine this is something that will last quite a while,
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For 15 years the Government of Burma (Myanmar) has refused to implement recommendations made by the UN and the situation is getting worse,
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It is the beginning of the worst moment. All of the flood barriers are at their maximum level.
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I still very well remember the moment in 1978 when me and my friends learned that Karol Wojtyla was elected the pope. It was a moment of an immense joy for us. I even think that we were so delighted that we danced for joy.
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Now we have a sort of economical drying of intellectuals,
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But if I were to say who influenced me most, then I'd say Franz Kafka. And his works were always anchored in the Central European region.
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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.
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Modern science kills God and takes his place on the vacant throne. Science is the sole legitimate arbiter of all relavent truth.
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A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerally of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.
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We long ago pulled down the great wall which divided us from democratic Europe, but equally we tolerate the slow and inconspicuous growth of new walls, no better than those which fell,
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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.
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The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.
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The award is destined for scientists who do not fear to touch on some of the darkest aspects of being without betraying what they have achieved. On the contrary, they head in this direction.
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It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.