Vaclav Havel Quotes

In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.

My search not only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who had searched like myself had failed also, and come like me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute knowledge man can possess is this—that life is without a meaning.

I searched all areas of knowledge, and not only did I fail to find anything, but I was convinced that all those who had explored as I did had also come up with nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had clearly acknowledged the same thing that had brought me to despair: the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

Cut off from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.

In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive.

In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,--no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on,--so aimless as they are? After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy purpose.

it seems a silly kind o' business to bring us into the world at all for no special reason 'cept to take us out of it again just as folks 'ave learned to know us a bit and find us useful.

Everybody knows how awful the world is and what a terrible situation it is and each person distorts it in a certain way that enables him to get through. Some people distort it with religious things. Some people distort it with sports, with money, with love, with art, and they all have their own nonsense about what makes it meaningful, and all but nothing makes it meaningful. These things definitely serve a certain function, but in the end they all fail to give life meaning and everyone goes to his grave in a meaningless way.

Then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,it seems like some long, dirty lie ... and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?

Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.

That nature does not care, one way or the other, is the true abyss. That only man cares, in his finitude facing nothing but death, alone with his contingency and the objective meaninglessness of his projecting meanings, is a truly unprecedented situation.

When I was young I read 'L'Etranger' by Camus, and it made me aware of the strangeness of life.

I've always felt like an alien trapped in a human form. We all do at some time or other; for me it's a permanent state, and I'm still unsure if Earth is a penance or a reward.

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

It would be really wonderful if people connected to the loneliness of what it means to be a human being in the world today.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.