Explore more quotes by 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."

Absurdity, Man

"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."

Life, Hope, Absurdity, Doubt

"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."

Change, People, Artist, Job

"I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect."

Art, Theatre

"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."

Government, Military, Words

"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."

Hope, Optimism, Certainty, Conviction

"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."

Success, Work, Hope, Ability

"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."

Time, Hope, Act, Effect

"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."

Control, Man, Meaning, Measure

"Lying can never save us from another lie."

Lie, Lying

Exlpore more Truth quotes

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

Mark Twain, American Author

Truth, Denial

"Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima."

Pablo Picasso, Spanish Artist

Truth, Genius, Negative, Positive, Value

"What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice."

Ronald Reagan, American President

Truth, People, Choice, Country, Now

"Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them."

Martin Luther King, Jr., American Leader

Truth, Society, Lie, Inferiority

"Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object."

Albert Camus, French Philosopher

Truth, Falsehood, Light, Twilight

"There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time.""

Abraham Lincoln, American Politician

Truth, Time, Daughter, Name, Now

"When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people."

Mark Twain, American Author

Truth, People, Being

"A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better."

Stephen Leacock, Canadian Economist

Truth, Argument

"We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral."

Epictetus, Greek Philosopher

Truth, Lies, Lying

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Winston Churchill, English Statesman

Truth, Men, Nothing