359 Quotes by Czechoslovakian authors

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From tavern banter to mountain hush, Czechoslovakian wisdom favors wry understatement, a tender eye for the absurd, and resilience without fanfare. History presses close, yet humor tugs the sleeve; freedom appears as responsibility, love as steadfastness, truth as a quiet stubbornness. Prague courtyards and Tatra paths lend their textures: cobbles, linden shade, winter light. The language turns on sharp proverbs and literary mischief, mingling skepticism toward power with compassion for ordinary lives, finding dignity in small gestures and hard-earned clarity.

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"Dictators are rulers who always look good until the last ten minutes"

Jan Masaryk, Diplomat

"Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel"

Karel Capek, Writer

"Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater"

Emil Zatopek, Athlete

"If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him?"

Oskar Schindler, Businessman

"If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help your souls"

Jan Masaryk, Diplomat

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting"

Milan Kundera, Writer

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

Vaclav Havel, Leader

"Men, today we die a little"

Emil Zatopek, Athlete

"I'm lucky, I don't like sweets, not even chocolate"

Eva Herzigova, Model

"Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior"

Stanislav Grof, Psychologist

"It is what makes the reform process an art, not just a science. You have to develop a strategy that tells you what reform measures you should follow and in what sequence"

Vaclav Klaus, Statesman

"Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual"

Milan Kundera, Writer

"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out"

Vaclav Havel, Leader

"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"

Vaclav Havel, Leader

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

Vaclav Havel, Leader

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

Vaclav Havel, Leader

"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"

Vaclav Havel, Leader

"If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon"

Emil Zatopek, Athlete

"If dogs could talk, perhaps we would find it as hard to get along with them as we do with people"

Karel Capek, Writer

"I didn't have to undergo reconstructive surgery"

Eva Herzigova, Model

"Yes, I was really good in physics and in math"

Eva Herzigova, Model

"I play a role in front of the cameras, just like in the movies"

Eva Herzigova, Model

"Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness"

Stanislav Grof, Psychologist

"Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena"

Stanislav Grof, Psychologist

"There is no roles. No one is keeping any roles. The drummer is also answering everybody and everything. So it is a constant conversation and communication between musicians on an extremely high level with extremely valuable material, motifs, and melodies"

Miroslav Vitous, Musician

"Now, after the communist take-over in 1948, the amount of feature films produced dwindled to three a year, while the school was, you know, every year another three, four, five students"

Milos Forman, Director

"You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler"

Milos Forman, Director

"They taught us because they wanted to pass the knowledge on and educate young musicians. It was not because they had to teach because they failed as musicians. There is a huge difference in the reasons why someone is teaching and what they can offer and what they cannot offer"

Miroslav Vitous, Musician

"Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion"

John Comenius, Educator

"For God is my witness that I neither preached, affirmed, nor defended them, though they say that I did"

Jan Hus, Philosopher

"Learn from the past, look to the future, but live in the present"

Petra Nemcova, Model

"I still speak Czech with my parents because I was born there"

Martina Hingis, Athlete

"We are the party of the Czechoslovak proletariat and our general headquarters are in Moscow"

Klement Gottwald, Politician

"I think it was the right time for me to retire because nowadays tennis is too incredibly fast and you can say that my style tennis went out of fashion"

Jana Novotna, Athlete

"If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can"

Ivan Lendl, Athlete

Small: Ivan Lendl

"My acting coach makes the impossible accessible"

Karolina Kurkova, Model

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