Milan Kundera Quotes

“In eroticism as dance: one of the partners is always charged with leading the other.”

“No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”

“Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.”

“Only animals were not expelled from Paradise.”

“Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable”

“People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still. ”

“People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end.”

“Scepticism does not abolish the world, it turns it into questions.”

“Solitude: a sweet absence of looks.”

“Speak truth to power.”

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.”

“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.”

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”

“Suicide is worse than murder. One can murder for vengeance or out of greed, but even greed is the expression of a perverted love of life. But to commit suicide is to throw one's life down contemptuously at God's feet.”

“No love can survive muteness.”

“The greater the time we have left behind, the more irresistible is the voice that invites us to return.”

“The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”

“Not only have people stopped trying to be attractive when they are out among other people, but they are no longer even trying not to look ugly!”

“Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”

“Tell me, where in life is there a value that would make us consider suicide uncalled for on principle! Love? Or friendship? I guarantee that friendship is not a bit less fickle than love and it is impossible to build anything on it. Self-love? I wish it were possible.”

“Only when a person reaches old age can he stop caring about the opinions of his fellows, or of the public, or of the future.”

“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone.”

“Sad company is bad company.”

“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.”

“Optimism is the opium of the people.”

“People who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all.”

“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.”

“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”

“Because to love is to renounce strength.”

“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.”