Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness a more humane society will not emerge.
We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the uncertainties and possibilities of the postmodern era, highlighting a complex reality where beliefs and truths are fluid.
Vaclav Havel's quote captures the essence of the postmodern condition, where traditional structures of meaning and certainty are challenged. In a world characterized by rapid change and diverse perspectives, individuals are faced with endless possibilities, yet this multiplicity comes at the cost of stability and certitude. The statement encourages a reflection on how we navigate a reality that is both liberating and disorienting.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker discussing modern challenges in a sociology class could use this quote to illustrate the complexities of contemporary life.
More from Vaclav Havel
All quotes βOwnership is not a vice, not something to be ashamed of, but rather a commitment, and an instrument by which the general good can be served.
In my opinion, theater shouldn't give advice to citizens.
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.
The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.
Human rights, human freedoms... and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world... while the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God.
Similar quotes
It is the business of future to be dangerous.... The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.
If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy.
If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. Itβs the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants; it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves.
With the eventual acceptance of Darwin's theory we reach a modern understanding of nature, one which has since then changed in detail rather than in fundamentals. Only those who prefer religious faith to beliefs based on reasoning and evidence can still maintain that the human species is the special darling of the entire universe, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them, and divine permission to kill them.
Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.