Vaclav Havel Quotes

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.

I am the product of living in dictatorships. And someone who's lived in dictatorships and not being allowed to be themselves, it cherishes the ability to be yourself and to have feelings and to speak them when asked. And I am that person.

It is subversive to set up inquisitions like this, state or national, into the thoughts and consciences of Americans.... It is subversive for commissions like this to spread hysteria and intimidation throughout the land that Americans are afraid to sign petitions, afraid to read progressive magazines, afraid to make out checks for liberal causes, afraid to join organizations, afraid to speak their mind on public issues. Americans dare not be free citizens! This is the destruction of democracy.

Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

While they shriek for "freedom of the press" when there is no slightest threat to that freedom, they deny to citizens that freedom from the press to which the decencies of life entitle them. They misrepresent, they distort, they color, they blackguard, they lie.

Israel and America are the only two grievances which may be freely expressed in Arab counties.

Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens.

The evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile.

Lying in issues of foreign policy facilitates lying on a broader scale; it creates an atmosphere where people think it’s routine to try and deceive the American people, that it’s OK to deceive the American people

The way governments treat their own citizens matters; it matters because it can have a direct impact on international peace and security - and on our respective national security interests.

Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock on one day, and statues on the next.

This war is being played in the realm of public opinion and has dire consequences for our soldiers in Iraq, the future of our country, and freedom around the world.

The fight for reform comes down to a simple goal: giving our citizens the confidence that government serves the people first and the people only.

Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.

Democracy is not theater - it determines life and death!

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

I've been reading a lot about North Korea ever since I got the part in 'The Interview' because it's just such a fascinating place. There are so many amazing stories of bravery coming out of there.

Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how governments work together to lie to their citizens when they are waging war.