1,075 Quotes by Milan Kundera

At a time when history made its way slowly, the few events were easily remembered and woven into a backdrop, known to everyone, before which private life unfolded the gripping show of its adventures. Nowadays, time moves forward at a rapid pace. Forgotten overnight, a historic event glistens the next day like the morning dew and thus is no longer the backdrop to a narrator's tale but rather an amazing adventure enacted against the background of the over-familiar banality of private life.

Those who are fascinated by the idea of progress do not suspect that everything moving forward is at the same time bringing the end nearer and that joyous watchwords like "forward" and "farther" are the lascivious voice of death urging us to hasten to it. (If fascination with the word "forward" has become universal, isn't it mainly because death is already speaking to us from nearby?)

People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end and that behind all the joyous 'onward and upward' slogans lurks the lascivious voice of death urging us to make haste.

Tous les hommes politiques d'aujourd'hui, selon Pontevin, sont un peu danseurs, et tous les danseurs se mêlent de politique, ce qui, toutefois, ne devrait pas nous amener à les confondre. Le danseur se distingue de l'homme politique ordinaire en ceci qu'il ne désire pas le pouvoir mais la gloire ; il ne désire pas imposer au monde telle ou telle organisation sociale (il s'en soucie comme d'une guigne) mais occuper la scène pour faire rayonner son moi.

How many ancient myths begin with the rescue of an abandoned child! If Polybus hadn't taken in the young Oedipus, Sophocles wouldn't have written his most beautiful tragedy!

pour occuper la scène il faut en repousser les autres. Ce qui suppose une technique de combat spéciale. le combat que mène le danseur, Pontevin l'appelle le judo moral ; le danseur jette le gant au monde entier : qui est capable de se montrer plus moral (plus courageux, plus honnête, plus sincère, plus disposé au sacrifice, plus véridique) que lui ? Et il manie toutes les prises qui lui permettent de mettre l'autre dans une situation moralement inférieure.

Metaphors are dangerous, Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.

vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It's unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry.