From the New York Times:

Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.Shy and bookish, with wispy mustache and unkempt hair, Mr. Havel came to symbolize the power of the people to peacefully overcome totalitarian rule.Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred, He famously said. It became his revolutionary motto which he said he strove to live by.

This appreciation by Peggy Steinfels, in Commonweal, of Havel's post-presidential book, To the Castle and Back:

Outsiders cannot wholly comprehend the fraught relationship between Havel-as-president and his fellow Czechs, nor are we privy to the currents of political life in a nation whose moral life was leeched away by lies, and whose president regularly and candidly spoke of this problem to his fellow citizens. Living in truth was what he preached as a dissident, and it is what he preached as president. We know from experience how rare that is. Whatever his political shortcomings in office, at least in this, the Czechs were privileged to have Vaclav Havel as president.