Nice news below the fold

Vaclav Havel will be buried tomorrow and his fellow prisoner under the communist regieme, Archbishop Dominik Duka of Prague, will conduct the funeral mass.

some quotes from Havel on hope:

Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
Vaclav Havel

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

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

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

I am reminded of Tolkien's writings that discuss the two words in Elvish for hope: one is hope in the short term, and the second one, Estel, is hope or belief that in the long run everything will work for the good. Here, Havel is discussing the second definition.

GetReligion discusses Havel's writings, and notes this quip

Within a matter of days, we learned of the deaths of Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il (Josh Trevino tweeted: “I’d like to think God let Havel and Hitchens pick the third.”).

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