"When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete."

Wisdom

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Wisdom as articulated by Vaclav Havel. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Wisdom provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Vaclav Havel

Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs.

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More by Vaclav Havel

"Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life."

— Vaclav Havel
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"The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it."

— Vaclav Havel
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"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."

— Vaclav Havel
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"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good."

— Vaclav Havel
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More about Wisdom

"Wisdom principle 26 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 69."

— Carl Sagan
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"Wisdom principle 84 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 73."

— Meena Alexander
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"I never let anyone pluck, including myself, unless my mom approves. She guards my eyebrows. She's like the eyebrow police!"

— Isabelle Fuhrman
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"He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise."

— Quintus Ennius
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