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.

- Vaclav Havel

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

- Vaclav Havel

What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually.

- Vaclav Havel

Lying can never save us from another lie.

- Vaclav Havel

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.

- Vaclav Havel

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

- Vaclav Havel

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

- Vaclav Havel

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

- Vaclav Havel

The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought.

- Vaclav Havel

The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.

- Vaclav Havel

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.

- Vaclav Havel

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.

- Vaclav Havel

Theater is there to search for questions. It doesn't give you instructions.

- Vaclav Havel

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.

- Vaclav Havel

I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.

- Vaclav Havel

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

- Vaclav Havel

It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.

- Vaclav Havel

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

- Vaclav Havel

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.

- Vaclav Havel

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

- Vaclav Havel