Václav Havel

There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Vaclav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to turn over either his conscience or his voice to political handlers and professional speech-writers. Instead he assumes the additional burden - for him, it is a distinct pleasure - of composing all of his oratory. This volume consists of thirty-five of these essays, written between the years 1990 and 1996, that manage to be both profoundly personal and profoundly political. Havel writes of totalitarianism, its miseries and the nonetheless difficult emergence from it. He describes how his country and the other post-communist countries are learning democracy from scratch and are encountering obstacles from inside and out. He marvels at the single technology-driven civilization that envelops the globe, and the challenges this presents to multicultural realities. And he reminds us that - contrary to all appearances - common sense, moderation, responsibility, good taste, feeling, instinct, and conscience are not alien to politics, but are the very key to its long-term success.

There is only one way to strive for decency, reason, responsibility, sincerity, civility, and tolerance, and that is decently, reasonable, sincerity, civility, and tolerantly. For aware that, in everyday politics, this is not seen as the most practical way of going about it.... Anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions, but I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don't know whether I'll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. Thee is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause. A moral and intellectual state cannot be established through a constitution, or through law, or through directives, but only through complex, long-term, and never-ending work.... It is a way of going about things, nd it demands the courage to breathe moral and spiritual motivation into everything, to seek the human dimension in all things. Science, technology, expertise, and so-called professionalism are not enough. Something more is necessary. For the sake of simplicity, it might be called spirit. Or feeling. Or conscience.