Vaclav Havel Quotes

I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

I'm very hopeful that I'm not the only one who's willing to pick up the baton of freedom, because freedom is not free, and we must fight for it every day. Every one of us must fight for it, because we're fighting for our children and the next generation.

I am responsible only to God and history.

And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over... is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

Always do everything you ask of those you command.

And if you cannot remain indifferent, you must resolve to throw your weight into that balance in which the fate and condition of man is weighed.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.

Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.

We are all responsible for our actions and our failures to act.

Dependence is not patriotism. A man does not love his mother if he hangs about her to the point of burdening her with a weak, feckless son.

I don't feel I owe anyone anything.

The Holocaust changed our perception of morality not only because we discovered that morality is the only thing that can stand up to the ultimate evil, but also because it shifted the focus from society to the individual.

I believe that in life, you have to give things your best shot, do your best. You have to focus on what needs to be done, do the right thing, not the popular thing.

I'm a big boy, and I knew what I was getting into when I got into TV.

When I was growing up, my parents always told me that I had to do what I thought was right and not listen to other people. That was hard for me.

It must be something extraordinary to be able to say to yourself that the happiness of every French person is in your hands.

I really believe, if I learned anything in the military, it was that I was accountable for my actions and I like to be part of the team that kind of brings that back to Washington, D.C. - not just responsibility, but accountability and being ready to lose my job over doing what's right.

I think life would be a lot easier if people were able to stand in their mistakes and not backtrack. If you did something wrong, own it. Like, hold your own.

I'm totally independent. I don't bear any responsibility to any system.

I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

A free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.

Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.

People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.