1,075 Quotes by Milan Kundera

E qualcos'altro lo elevava: teneva sul tavolo un libro aperto. In quel bar nessuno aveva mai aperto un libro sul tavolo. Un libro era per Tereza il segno di riconoscimento di una fratellanza segreta. Contro il mondo della volgarità che la circondava, essa aveva infatti un’unica difesa: i libri che prendeva in prestito alla biblioteca comunale…

Erotizam je komercijalno dvosmislen, jer premda svi priželjkuju erotski život, svi ga također mrze kao uzrok svojih nesreća, frustracija, zavisti, kompleksa, patnji.

No nation has been on earth since the beginning of time and the very concept of nationhood is pretty recent. Despite that, most nations look upon their own existence as a self-evident destiny conferred by God, or by Nature, since time immemorial. Nations tend to think of their cultures and political systems, even their frontiers, as the work of Man, but they see their national existence as a transcendent fact, beyond all question

As constatações mais banais são sempre as mais surpreendentes

for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know hot to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know hot to be dead.

He took her in his arms and lifted her up. She looked at him and he noticed only now that her eyes were full of tears. He pressed her to him. She understood that he loved her and this suddenly filled her with sadness. She felt sad that he loved her so much, and she felt like crying.

The physical contact with people who struck and trampled and killed one another seemed far worse to him than a solitary death in the purity of the waters.

[...] in his whole life he had never acted as he wished to act. He considered himself the administrator of his own immortality, and that responsibility tied him down and turned him stiff and prim.