Remembering and celebrating the life of Václav Havel 4 years after his passing

"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."- Václav Havel

Václav Havel, (1939 - 2011)

 Four years ago today Václav Havel departed this mortal coil and today he is remembered with photos of people around the world wearing short trousers. Czechs continue to remember and honor not only his ideas but also his sense of humor. Visit the website of Den Václava Havla to understand the historic significance of the link between Havel and short trousers.

Today the trousers I wore where visibly short and the pictures are here to prove it, also reviewed the Czech dissident's writings and sayings, and finally screened "The Power of the Powerless" a film narrated by Jeremy Irons that prominently features Václav Havel and his role in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Until his final days Havel engaged in actions of solidarity on behalf of pro-democracy dissidents under oppressive regimes.

Honoring and remembering Havel with short trousers

Met him only a handful of times, but four years after his passing I still miss Vaclav Havel as do millions of others.  He was a playwright, a philosopher, an intellectual, a dissident, a president and rock n roll aficionado. Havel was that rarest of creatures a good man who still managed to be a great politician. His work and legacy are there for all to see, and his words and example continue to be celebrated. Here is a small sampling of Václav Havel's words:

"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not."

"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less."

"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility."

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

"I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions."

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

"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

"True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?"

"There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side."

Prague remembers Havel in 2015