1,075 Quotes by Milan Kundera

  • Author Milan Kundera
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    The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    Only after a while did it occur to me (in spite of the chilly silence which surrounded me) that my story was not of the tragic sort, but rather of the comic variety. At any rate that afforded me some comfort.

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. In the course of a single second, our senses of sight, of hearing, of smell, register (knowingly or not) a swarm of events and a parade of sensations and ideas passes through our head. Each instant represents a little universe, irrevocably forgotten in the next instant.

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Reethoven's Ninth, Rartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, or the Reatles' White Album?

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    There are moments in life when a man retreats defensively, when he must give ground, when he must surrender less important positions in order to protect the more important ones. But should it come to the very last, the most important one, at this point a man must halt and stand firm if he doesn't want to begin life all over again with idle hands and a feeling of being shipwrecked.

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  • Author Milan Kundera
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    Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.

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