1990 New Year's Address to the Nation
Delivered on January 1, 1990, as the first democratically elected president following the Velvet Revolution, delivering an extraordinarily honest assessment of the nation's moral and economic state.
Full Transcript
For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were.
I assume you did not propose me to this office so that I, too, should lie to you.
Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used meaningfully. Entire industries are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are severely lacking the things we need.
The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something has meaning, regardless of how it turns out.
Defining Key Excerpts
"For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day... how our country was flourishing. I assume you did not propose me to this office so that I, too, should lie to you."
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something has meaning, regardless of how it turns out."
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