Prague Winter Quotes

I wonder,” wrote Eleanor Roosevelt, “whether we have decided to hide behind neutrality? It is safe, perhaps, but I am not always sure it is right to be safe. . . . Every time a nation which has known freedom loses it, other free nations lose something, too.

I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems -- personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to every thing that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not a first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here.

People everywhere, including the United States, are still prone to accept stereotypes, eager to believe what we want to believe (for example, on global warming) and anxious to await while others take the lead--seeking in vain to avoid both responsibility and risk. When trouble arises among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but left in the closet when clouds threaten.

There is a lesson in [Terezín] for those who conduct inspections in our day, whether in prisons, sweatshops, refugee camps, polling places, or nuclear facilities: do not trust––push; control your own schedule; do your homework. Remember the adage that a little knowledge can be dangerous. The truth is more likely to be served by a canceled or aborted inspection than by a whitewash.

De ware schuldige is niet degene die zich gedwongen ziet een dergelijke keuze te maken; de schuld ligt bij degenen die de omstandigheden hebben geschapen waarin zulke keuzes moeten worden gemaakt".

What fascinates me—and what serves as a central theme of this book—is why we make the choices we do. What separates us from the world we have and the kind of ethical universe envisioned by someone like Havel? What prompts one person to act boldly in a moment of crisis and a second to seek shelter in the crowd? Why do some people become stronger in the face of adversity while others quickly lose heart? What separates the bully from the protector? Is it education, spiritual belief, our parents, our friends, the circumstances of our birth, traumatic events, or more likely some combination that spells the difference? More succinctly, do our hopes for the future hinge on a desirable unfolding of external events or some mysterious process within?

In A Man With a Pipe, my brother observed that although my father had been seen as intellectual and my mother more a creature of temperament, she had often been the more levelheaded of the two. In sum, we miss them as we love them, equally and always.

the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.

Two months earlier, speaking at Westminster College in Missouri, Winston Churchill had declared that an Iron Curtain was descending across Europe.

Among the nation’s early rulers was Václav (in English, Wenceslas), a devout Christian who incurred resentment among the pagan nobility due to his kindness toward the poor.

The Nazis' entrance upon the European stage did not, at first, alarm the British. After all, under the Versailles treaty, the size of the German army and navy was limited and the defeated country was forbidden to maintain air force. The wake-up bell began sounding only when, in March 1935, Hitler renounced the treaty and declared that his country would indeed rebuild its military. The following year, when Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, Britons were unsettled to learn that his army was already three times the legal size and that his air force, or Luftwaffe, would surpass their own.

scholar,” wrote my father, “inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror—what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of . . . identity.

Returning to Washington,FDR declared that Yalta Conference had put and end to the kind of balance-of-power divisions that had long marred global politics. His assessment echoed Woodrow Wilson's idealistic and equally inaccurate claims at the end of World War I. In London, Churchill told his cabinet that "poor Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don't think I'm wrong about Stalin." Soviet-British friendship, Churchill maintained, "would continue as long as Stalin was in charge.

When trouble arise among faraway people, we remain tempted to hide behind the principle of national sovereignty, to "mind our own business" when it is convenient, and to think of democracy as a suit to be worn in fine weather but felt in the closet when clouds threaten.

It would be good news indeed if people were behaving unnaturally when, under the stress of wartime conditions, they exhibited more cruelty than compassion and more cowardice than courage; or if those who rushed to salute Hitler and Stalin had first been twisted into something other than “themselves.” In saying this, I do not intend to leap into a philosophical or still less a theological discussion of human character. There is no need to go beyond what we know and have seen. Given the events described in this book, we cannot help but acknowledge the capacity

Chamberlain was too timid to take that advice, but he was not entirely blind to the deepening danger. “Is it not positively horrible,” he wrote, “to think that the fate of hundreds of millions depends on one man, and he is half mad? I keep racking my brains to try and devise some means of averting a catastrophe.

Known throughout his career for penetrating insights and a lack of romanticism, he wrote that “one of humanity’s oldest and most recalcitrant human dilemmas” consists of the choice between “a limited collaboration with evil, in the interests of its ultimate mitigation” and “an uncompromising, heroic but suicidal resistance to it.

It seemed like just another Monday, innocent but for its essential Mondayness, not to mention its Januaryness. It was cold, and it was dark—in the dead of winter the sun didn’t rise until eight—but it was also lovely. The falling snow and the early hour conspired to paint Prague ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze.

When, in May, tensions reached a high point, London warned Berlin that if it attacked Czechoslovakia and the French were embroiled as well, "His Majesty's Government could not guarantee that they would not be forced by circumstances to become involved also". Ar the same time, English officials were telling their counterparts in Paris that they were "not disinterested" in Czechoslovakia's fate. I learned in the course of my own career that British diplomats are trained to write in with precision; so when a double negative is employed, the intent, usually, is not to clarify an issue but to surround it with fog.

A U.S. serviceman, standing nearby, was not so content. He yelled at the Czechs to stop. “The war is over, so halt your bullying!” he shouted. Some of his buddies agreed. That was too much for Hana. “How dare you?” she demanded of the American. “Where in the States are you from, anyway?” “Mississippi,” he said. “Miss-iss-ip-pi?” said Hana, drawing out the syllables sarcastically. “I see. So you’ve come all the way from Miss-iss-ip-pi to tell us in Czech-o-slo-vakia how we should treat our traitorous Nazi scum, our prisoners. You find it too much if we humiliate those dregs of humanity by making them sing Czech folk tunes? Where have you been all this time? Do you know what they have done? Do you know they tortured and killed millions? Or haven’t you heard? Or maybe,” said Hana, drawing a deep breath, “you sympathize with them because you float dead Negroes down your river?” Her words caused a commotion: furious and indignant soldiers gathered round; Hana’s own phrase was thrown back at her: “How dare you?” Another American intervened. “She’s absolutely right,” he said. “I’ve just come from those camps where we’ve been liberating the inmates. You should see it. Besides, these Germans are not being harmed in any way.” Turning to the first soldier, he said, “Let’s you and I keep out of it, okay?

Po celý život jsem hledala lék na všechny druhy životních problémů – osobních, společenských, politických, globálních. Jsou mi hluboce podezřelí lidé, kteří nabízejí jednoduchá řešení, něco tvrdí s naprostou jistotou nebo si činí nárok na výhradní vlastnictví pravdy. Stejně skepticky pohlížím na všechny, podle nichž je všechno tak složité a členité, že se v tom nemůžeme vyznat, a vše je tak mnohostranné, že se můžeme celý život den co den hnát za poznáním, a přitom nic nevědět jistě. Jsem přesvědčena, že když pravdu spatříme, poznáme ji, jenom se tak třeba nestane okamžitě a bez úsilí o hlubší poznání. Je tomu tak proto, že cíl, k němuž směřujeme, a dobro, v něž doufáme, nepřicházejí jako nějaká závěrečná odměna, ale jsou skrytým společníkem našeho hledání. Odpověď na otázku, proč jsme tady, nám nedá to, co najdeme. Je skryta v důvodu, proč nemůžeme přestat hledat.

Going to Moscow was a dream for us,' Ilich said years later. He and his younger brother started the course within weeks of Soviet tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia to crush the heady 'Prague Spring'. But they soon found that discipline at the cosmopolitan university, whose 6000 students were all selected through the Communist Party of their country of origin, was as stifling as its modernist architecture. Drab grey concrete blocks squatted around a charmless artificial pond. The only dash of colour was a map of the world painted on to the façade of one block in a valiant attempt to symbolise the ideals of the university: from an open book, symbol of learning, a torch emerges, issuing multicoloured flames that spread like waves across the planisphere. Perhaps Ilich drew some comfort from glancing up at the mural as, huddled against the rigours of the Russian winter and wearing a black beret in tribute to Che Guevara who had died riddled by bullets in October of the previous year, he trudged across the bleak square on his way to lectures. Coincidentally, the base of the flame is very close to Venezuela. Rules and regulations governed virtually every aspect of Ilich's life from the moment he started the first year's induction course, which was designed to flesh out his knowledge of the Russian language and introduce him to the delights of Marxist society before he launched into his chosen subjects, languages and chemistry. Like father, like son. Ilich rebelled against the rules, preferring to spend his time chasing girls. He would often crawl back to his room drunk. His professors at the university, some of them children of Spanish Civil War veterans who had sought refuge in Moscow, were unimpressed by his academic performance. 'His name alone, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, was so strange that people were curious about him,' relates Kirill Privalov, a journalist on the newspaper Druzhba (Friendship) which was printed at the small university press, and an acquaintance of Ilich. The Venezuelan's escapades, wildly excessive by the standards of the university, only fanned people's interest. 'llich was not at all the typical student sent by his country's Communist Party, nothing to do with the good little soldier of Mao who laboured in the fields every summer. He was a handsome young man although his cheeks looked swollen, and he was a great bon viveur. Flush with cash sent by his parents, Ilich could afford to spend lavishly on whisky and champagne in the special stores that only accepted payment in hard currencies and which were off-limits to most people. More Russian than the Russians, the privileged student and his friends would throw over their shoulders not only empty glasses but bottles as well. The university authorities, frustrated in their attempts to impose discipline on Ilich, reasoned that his freedom of action would be drastically limited if the allowance that his father sent him were reduced. But when they asked Ramírez Navas to be less generous, the father, piqued, retorted that his son had never wanted for anything. 'The university had a sort of vice squad, and at night students were supposed either to study or sleep,' recounts Privalov. "One night the patrol entered Ilich's room and saw empty bottles of alcohol and glasses on the table, but he was apparently alone. The squad opened the cupboard door and a girl who was completely drunk fell out. She was naked and was clutching her clothes in her hands. They asked her what she was doing there and she answered: 'I feel pity for the oppressed.' She was obviously a prostitute. Another time, and with another girl, Ilich didn't bother to hide her in the cupboard. He threw her out of the window. This one was fully dressed and landed in two metres of snow a foor or two below. She got up unhurt and shouted abuse at him.

ON THE NIGHT of November 23, Beneš began an eventful pilgrimage

believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not at first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more.

The historian’s job is to sift through such narratives and separate truth from fiction. Frequently, however, facts are redesigned to fit a pattern that conforms to the author’s sensibility at the time the writing is done. That is why the past seems constantly to change. “A scholar,” wrote my father, “inescapably reads the historical record in much the same way as he would look in a mirror—what is most clear to him is the image of his own values [and] sense of . . . identity.

Let us recall the boys and girls who had the nerve to write poetry and create works of art, and the adults who cared enough about life to debate philosophy, treat the ill and share their meager belongings all in a prison expressly designed to crush their spirit.

In April 1945, immediately before surrendering the construction site, the Germans locked 1,046 of the workers into a barn and burned them alive.

In recognition of his accomplishments, von Braun was publicly congratulated by President John F. Kennedy, whose older brother, Joseph Jr., had died while on a 1944 bombing mission against a doodlebug launch site in France.

Henlein was motivated less by Nazi ideology than by the lure of power and fame. His skill as a politician stemmed from his gift for lying with apparent sincerity

Chamberlain could also be philosophical about the führer’s coarse rhetoric and bullying, which he ascribed to poor breeding. However, the prime minister could not imagine anyone intentionally causing a second world war.

The Chamberlain government was slow to realize that the führer was determined to remain indignant. Denied a reasonable ground of complaint, he would quickly invent an unreasonable one.

people. THE EARLIEST SETTLERS of the lands that lie within the heart of Europe between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube were the Boii, a Celtic tribe on the run from northern floods.

The Czech motto, “Truth shall prevail,” derives from Hus’s refusal to accept fully the authority of the Church. Instead of Latin, he insisted on preaching in the local tongue, thus making the words and message of the Gospel more accessible. He advocated a host of doctrines that presaged the Protestant Reformation, including the idea that Jesus, not the pope, was the true head of the Church; that the Communion wafer and wine were merely symbolic; and that encouraging sinners to buy their way to salvation had no scriptural sanction

Communists, like the Nazis, were manipulating the press, smearing political rivals, demanding total loyalty from their members, and threatening anyone who stood in their way.

Odpověď na otázku, proč jsme tady, nám nedá to, co najdeme. Je skryta v důvodu, proč nemůžeme přestat hledat.