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d1bd1e7
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For the body is temporal and thought is eternal and the shimmering essence of flame is an image of thought.
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Milan Kundera |
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ce8eea4
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What? We feel aesthetic pleasure at a sonata by Beethoven and not at one with the same style and charm if it comes from one of our own contemporaries? Isn't that the height of hypocrisy? So then the sensation of beauty is not spontaneous, spurred by our sensibility, but instead is cerebral, conditioned by our knowing a date? No way around it: historical consciousness is so thoroughly inherent in our perception of art that this anachronism (..
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Milan Kundera |
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0c6d2dc
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So she stood naked in front of the young man and at this moment stopped playing the game.
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sex
relationships
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Milan Kundera |
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76c65ee
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in our time art is encrusted with a noisy, opaque, logorrhea of theory that prevents a work from coming into direct, media free, non-interpreted contact with its viewer (its reader, its listener)
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Milan Kundera |
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421f938
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m hrgz nmy twnym b qT`yt bgwyym khh rwbT m b dygrn t chh Hdy z Hsst m, z `shq m, z fqdn `shq m, z lTf w mhrbny m, w y z khynh w nfrt m, srchshmh my gyrd w t chh Hd z qdrt w D`f dr myn frd tthyr my pdhyrd. brhsty myln khwndr
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milan Kundera |
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2153f3c
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What is flirtation? One might say that it is behavior leading another to believe that sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty. In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
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Milan Kundera |
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a4c2193
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In this country people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure. Believe me, it is the mo..
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Milan Kundera |
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95560a5
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If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy
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Milan Kundera |
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aae8e0e
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And think about the precise meaning of that term: a Narcissus is not proud. A proud man has disdain for other people, he undervalues them. The Narcissus overvalues them, because in every person's eyes he sees his own image, and wants to embellish it. So he takes nice care of all his mirrors.
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narcissism
modernity
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Milan Kundera |
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7cbc7d3
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The termites of reduction have always gnawed away at life: even the greatest love ends up as a skeleton of feeble memories.
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memories
love
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Milan Kundera |
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2ebddc6
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A long time ago, man would listen in amazement to the sound of regular beats in his chest, never suspecting what they were. He was unable to identify himself with so alien and unfamiliar an object as the body. The body was a cage, and inside that cage was something which looked, listened, feared, thought, and marveled; that something, that remainder left over after the body had been accounted for, was the soul.
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Milan Kundera |
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6cdb8e3
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Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colourful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles... no matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery. Even in wartime, even in Hitler's time, even in Stalin's time..
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Milan Kundera |
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7bba2c6
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I'd say that the quantity of boredom, if boredom is measurable, is much greater today than it once was. Because the old occupations, at least most of them, were unthinkable without a passionate involvement: the peasants in love with their land; my grandfather, the magician of beautiful tables; the shoemakers who knew every villager's feet by heart; the woodsmen; the gardeners; probably even the soldiers killed with passion back then. The me..
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Milan Kundera |
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066a6c4
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lshfq@ h~ l`n@ tbdl l`wTf mn shkhS lakhr..
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Milan Kundera |
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bf2f813
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I beg you friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope.
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Milan Kundera |
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e7f8327
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She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her.
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Milan Kundera |
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b3508b7
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Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn't expect much from her re-unions.
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Milan Kundera |
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a7bc8a1
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If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress.
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Milan Kundera |
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53bbcbd
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Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
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love
senses
sensuality
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Milan Kundera |
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fb62b25
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A man may ask anything of a woman, but unless he wishes to behave like a brute, he must make it possible for her to act in harmony with her deepest self-deceptions.
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Milan Kundera |
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f69f273
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'tkhyl nf`l ky'nyn yltqyn b`d snwt. qdym t`shr, fyZnn dhn 'nhm mrtbTn bnfs ltjrb@, bnfs ldhkryt. nfs ldhkryt? hn ybd' sw lfhm: lys ldyhm nfs ldhkryt, klhm, yHtfZ mn lqthm bthnyn 'w thlth@ mwqf SGyr@, lkn lkl mnhm m ykhSh mnh, dhkrythm l ttshbh, l ttqT`, wHt~ kmy lyst qbl@ llmqrn@: 'Hdhm ytdhkr llakhr 'kthr mm ytdhkr lakhr hw lh, 'wl l'n qdr@ ldhkr@ tkhtlf mn shkhS lakhr (mzl hdh tfsyr mqbwl mn klyhm) lkn 'yD (whdh S`b ltslym bh) l'nh lys l'..
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Milan Kundera |
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bfb39b5
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The young man called the waiter and paid. Then he got up and said to the girl: 'We're going.' Where to?' The girl feigned surprise. Don't ask, just come on,' said the young man. Is that any way to talk to me?' It's the way I talk to whores.
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Milan Kundera |
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bfbefeb
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tnsh' l`Tf@ bdkhln f~ Gfl@ mnW wGlban m ykwn dhlk Dd rdtn. wbmjrd 'n nt`mWd lHss bh l t`wd l`Tf@ `Tf@ , bl ttHwl l~ mHk@ `Tf@ , wl~ st`rD lh.
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Milan Kundera |
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c433f09
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There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weights so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, with someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
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Milan Kundera |
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c6b2882
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lw lm 'r Swrty fy lmra@, w Tulb mnWy wSf hyy'ty lkhrjy@ nTlqan mn m`rfty bnfsy, lrsmt Swr@ l Sl@ lh bSwrty lty tur~! f'n lst mTlqan m 'bdw `lyh
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milan kundera |
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03a94d8
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Kafka] transformed the profoundly antipoetic material of a highly bureaucratized society into the great poetry of the novel; he transformed a very ordinary story of a man who cannot obtain a promised job . . . into myth, into epic, into a kind of beauty never before seen.
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Milan Kundera |
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a57ce4c
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In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air. So it was fair, in a way, that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their f..
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insult
hanged
gallows-humour
intellectual
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Milan Kundera |
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7900147
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Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drow..
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philosophical
life
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Milan Kundera |
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6895e9b
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She fixed him with a long careful, searching stare that was not devoid of irony's intelligent sparkle
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Milan Kundera |
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81925eb
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tkhtfy ldhkryt dh lm tustHDr mr@ w'khr~ fy 'Hdyth l'Sdq.
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Milan Kundera |
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efc8eac
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I have to lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become a madman myself
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Milan Kundera |
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1cb9cb1
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He was repelled by the pettiness that reduced life to mere existence and that turned men into half-men. He wanted to lay his life on a balance, the other side of which was weighted with death. He wanted to make his every action, every day, yes, every hour and minute worthy of being measured against the ultimate, which is death.
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Milan Kundera |
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661ba93
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He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can never compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
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Milan Kundera |
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f44381b
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If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.
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Milan Kundera |
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6d005c0
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klm kn lzmn ldhy nkhlfh wrn 'kbr klm 'SbH lSwt ldhy yHthWn `l~ l`wd@ l yuqwm , ybdw hdh lHkm mbdan `man, lknh mzyf. flky'n lbshry yshykh wlnhy@ tqtrb, ftSbH kl lHZ@ thmyn@ wl y`wd hnk wqt yuDyW` `l~ ldhkryt. yjb fhm ltnqD lryDy lZhry llHnyn : yZhr hdh bqw@ fy mrHl@ lshbb l'wl~, Hyn ykwn Hjm lHy@ lmDy@ zhydan.
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Milan Kundera |
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d18f024
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The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters.
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Milan Kundera |
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6d3da80
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A person is nothing but his image. Philosophers can tell us that it doesn't matter what the world thinks of us, that nothing matters but what we really are. But philosophers don't understand anything. As long as we live with other people, we are only what other people consider us to be. Thinkingabout how others see us and trying to make our image as attractive as possible is considered a kind of dissembling or cheating. But doesthere exist ..
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Milan Kundera |
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dbfb6e7
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From the top of the staircase she sees the London train, modern and elegant, and she tells herself again: Whether it's good luck or bad to be born onto this earth, the best way to spend a life here is to let yourself be carried along, as I am moving at this moment, by a cheerful, noisy crowd moving forward.
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Milan Kundera |
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dcf1a3e
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There is no perfection only life..
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Milan Kundera |
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3eb3329
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That's another enigma about memory, more basic than all the rest: do recollections have some measurable temporal volume? do they unfold over a span of time? [...] And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a moment the way we reread a book or resee a film.
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Milan Kundera |
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d77b376
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Those boobs of yours are ubiquitous - like God!
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Milan Kundera |
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50756a2
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hl lrwy@ shy akhr sw~ fkh mnSwb llbTl?
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Milan Kundera |
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46310d7
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The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.
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Milan Kundera |
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6c98c05
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Dreaming is not only an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine - to dream about things that have not happened - is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were beautiful, they would quickly be forgotten.
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milan-kundera
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Milan Kundera |