Milan Kundera quotes - page 3

Milan Kundera was a Czech-born writer and essayist, celebrated for his thought-provoking novels on memory, identity, and political history. His works, such as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," explore the complexities of love, exile, and the human condition. He became one of the most influential literary voices of the 20th century. Here are 265 of his quotes:

The eye... the point where a person's identity is concentrated. (Milan Kundera)
Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death. View quote
Milan Kundera
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost. View quote
Milan Kundera
But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave. View quote
Milan Kundera
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come. View quote
Milan Kundera
A single metaphor can give birth to love. View quote
Milan Kundera
I want you to be weak. As weak as I am. View quote
Milan Kundera
"Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said. "Because love means renouncing strength," said Franz softly. View quote
Milan Kundera
Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change. View quote
Milan Kundera
But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself? View quote
Milan Kundera
I have no mission. No one has. (Milan Kundera)
Once her love had been publicized, it would gain weight, become a burden. View quote
Milan Kundera
We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions -- love, antipathy, charity, or malice -- and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals. View quote
Milan Kundera
The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become. View quote
Milan Kundera
People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation. View quote
Milan Kundera
The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on. View quote
Milan Kundera
Art arises from sources other than logic." (p.32) View quote
Milan Kundera
What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating. View quote
Milan Kundera
The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen. View quote
Milan Kundera
No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development. View quote
Milan Kundera
This is the real and the only reason for friendship: to provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past, which, without the eternal blah-blah of memories between pals, would long ago have disappeared. (Milan Kundera)
Any new possibility that existence acquires, even the least likely, transforms everything about existence. View quote
Milan Kundera
Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value. View quote
Milan Kundera
Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it. View quote
Milan Kundera
Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. View quote
Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera - Image
Photo: Elisa Cabot, CC BY-SA 3.0
Occupation: Czech Poet
Born: April 1, 1929
Died: July 11, 2023
Quotes count: 265
Wikipedia: Milan Kundera

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