Words of Wisdom

Vaclav Havel – long term political prisoner in Communist Czechoslovakia who went on to become the country’s first non-communist President.

Prison taught me a number of things. First of all I began to appreciate better what human dignity is and what human dignity means. Even in the most difficult circumstances it is possible to retain your human dignity.

Secondly it was a major school of discipline and self control. I could see around me beefy inmates who showed off to the people around them but were ultimately unable to control them selves and they were embarrassing.

Thirdly it was important not to lord it over others. I was there for political reasons, other for committing crimes. But if we were to get along somehow it was necessary not to lie, to accept each other as human beings and not lord it over others.

Apart from what is intrinsic to all living beings, the most fundamental human needs are freedom and the search for the meaning of our existence, of everything that surrounds us and which we are part of.

Culture reflects the emancipation of the human spirit and a striving to understand human existance. Were we to find ourselves at the imaginary beginning of humankind , I am sure that the first thing to be created would be culture. What form it would assume is another matter.