Quotes by Havel, Vaclav

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest >>

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest mea >>

The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. H >>

Quotations about Submission

The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and >>

My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are. >>

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largen >>

If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.

Havel, Vaclav