You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

—Vaclav Havel

politics power responsibility policy circumstances

More quotations from Vaclav Havel

The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why and how it is said.

—Vaclav Havel

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

—Vaclav Havel

truth misery daylight

An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his "worldly" interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests. . . . So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself.

—Vaclav Havel

justice truth power freedom peace words democracy change responsibility talk values

More quotations tagged with “responsibility”

An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his "worldly" interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests. . . . So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself.

—Vaclav Havel

justice truth power freedom peace words democracy change responsibility talk values

I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.

—Oscar Levant

responsibility blame alcohol drinking

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

—Stanislaus Jerzy Lee

responsibility metaphor snow

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

—George Bernard Shaw

freedom responsibility liberty dread

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

humanity progress change responsibility caution playfulness