A single metaphor can give birth to love.


Milan Kundera

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Metaphors are dangerous, Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to l...
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Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with...
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Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
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Dreaming is not only an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagin...
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The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting
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No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one.
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No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one.
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It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of...
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...man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man: We have sucked their udders like ...
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A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of i...
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A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of i...
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All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual.
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Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists o...
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We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be w...
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A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the n...
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The word change, so dear to our Europe, has been given a new meaning: it no longer means a new stage...
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Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on ...
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The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused...
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Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different b...
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Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear...
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And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a...
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People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apat...
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for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain on...
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When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
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You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.
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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.
MILAN KUNDERA
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
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I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
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A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation (because no individ...
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We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't under...
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Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of it...
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A wave of anger washed over me, anger against myself, at my age at the time, that stupid lyrically a...
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The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually...
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For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his b...
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The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV progr...
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We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our em...
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High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we hav...
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Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical acci...
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Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.
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Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see i...
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True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has...
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There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one fe...
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The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel t...
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No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a ...
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A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is m...
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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.
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Optimism is the opium of the people.
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Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.
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Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way...
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The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of f...
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Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other.
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O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll ...
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Solitude: a sweet absence of looks.
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I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was ...
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Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent.
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To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing w...
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The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.
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Tereza's mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her wo...
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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance...
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Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most nai...
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The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually...
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Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity.
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Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.
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Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.
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A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it ...
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I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.
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Revolution in Love’. Can you tell me what you mean by that? Do you want free love as against bourg...
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The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.
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When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is ...
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We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at...
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Yes, suddenly I saw it clearly: most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: they believe i...
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I am incapable of speaking of myself and of my life and the states of my soul, I am discreet to an a...
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Every change of scene requires new expositions, descriptions, explanations.
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Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when...
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Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.
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A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it...
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Woman is the future of man. That means that the world which was once formed in man's image will now ...
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Solitude: sweet absence of faces.
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Young is the one that plunges in the future and never looks back.
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Love is a desire for that lost half of ourselves.
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Happiness is the longing for repetition.
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The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in...
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As early as 1930 Schoenberg wrote: "Radio is an enemy, a ruthless enemy marching irresistibly forwar...
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He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends
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The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget you...
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How goodness heightens beauty!
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Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.
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People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it ...
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There is no perfection only life
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A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
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Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
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No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
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More Milan Kundera

All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual.
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Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists o...
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We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be w...
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A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the n...
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The word change, so dear to our Europe, has been given a new meaning: it no longer means a new stage...
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The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused...
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People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apat...
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for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain on...
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When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
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You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.
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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.
MILAN KUNDERA
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
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I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
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A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation (because no individ...
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We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't under...
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Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of it...
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A wave of anger washed over me, anger against myself, at my age at the time, that stupid lyrically a...
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The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually...
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For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his b...
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The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV progr...
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We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our em...
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High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we hav...
MILAN KUNDERA
Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical acci...
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Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.
MILAN KUNDERA
Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see i...
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True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has...
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There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one fe...
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The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel t...
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No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a ...
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A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is m...
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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.
MILAN KUNDERA
Optimism is the opium of the people.
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Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.
MILAN KUNDERA
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way...
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The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of f...
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Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other.
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O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you’ve brought breakfast in bed you’ll ...
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Solitude: a sweet absence of looks.
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I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was ...
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Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent.
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To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing w...
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The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.
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Tereza's mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her wo...
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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance...
MILAN KUNDERA
Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most nai...
MILAN KUNDERA
The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually...
MILAN KUNDERA
Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity.
MILAN KUNDERA
Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.
MILAN KUNDERA
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.
MILAN KUNDERA
A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it ...
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I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.
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Revolution in Love’. Can you tell me what you mean by that? Do you want free love as against bourg...
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The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.
MILAN KUNDERA
How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence ...
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When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is ...
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We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at...
MILAN KUNDERA
Yes, suddenly I saw it clearly: most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: they believe i...
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I am incapable of speaking of myself and of my life and the states of my soul, I am discreet to an a...
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Every change of scene requires new expositions, descriptions, explanations.
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Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when...
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Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.
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Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the wa...
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A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it...
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In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, ma...
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Woman is the future of man. That means that the world which was once formed in man's image will now ...
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Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with...
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Solitude: sweet absence of faces.
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Young is the one that plunges in the future and never looks back.
MILAN KUNDERA
Love is a desire for that lost half of ourselves.
MILAN KUNDERA
Happiness is the longing for repetition.
MILAN KUNDERA
'I think therefore I am' is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches
MILAN KUNDERA
The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in...
MILAN KUNDERA
As early as 1930 Schoenberg wrote: "Radio is an enemy, a ruthless enemy marching irresistibly forwar...
MILAN KUNDERA
He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
MILAN KUNDERA
The reign of imagagology begins where history ends
MILAN KUNDERA
The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget you...
MILAN KUNDERA
How goodness heightens beauty!
MILAN KUNDERA
Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.
MILAN KUNDERA
People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times...
MILAN KUNDERA
Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
MILAN KUNDERA
There is no perfection only life
MILAN KUNDERA
A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
MILAN KUNDERA
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
MILAN KUNDERA
No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
MILAN KUNDERA
In order to make the novel into a polyhistorical illumination of existence, you need to master the t...
MILAN KUNDERA
The Transformation of music into noise was a planetary process by which mankind was entering the his...
MILAN KUNDERA
Man's world is the planet of inexperience.
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In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotin...
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The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry...
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When I was a little boy in short pants, I dreamed about a miraculous ointment that would make me inv...
MILAN KUNDERA
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our pr...
MILAN KUNDERA
He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two,...
MILAN KUNDERA
A mismatched outfit, a slightly defective denture, an exquisite mediocrity of the soul-those are the...
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For he was aware of the great secret of life: Women don't look for handsome men. Women look for men ...
MILAN KUNDERA
People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf,...
MILAN KUNDERA
We all need someone to look at us. we can be divided into four categories according to the kind of l...
MILAN KUNDERA
You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagina...
MILAN KUNDERA
What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for orde...
MILAN KUNDERA
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes fr...
MILAN KUNDERA
There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to...
MILAN KUNDERA
The religion of orgasm: utilitarianism projected into sex life; efficiency versus indolence; coition...
MILAN KUNDERA
Estoy bajo el agua y los latidos de mi corazón producen círculos en la superficie.
MILAN KUNDERA
I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I f...
MILAN KUNDERA
Physical love is unthinkable without violence.
MILAN KUNDERA
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain on...
MILAN KUNDERA
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the n...
MILAN KUNDERA
There are no small parts. Only small actors.
MILAN KUNDERA
Tomas turned the key and switched on the ceiling light. Teraza saw two beds pushed together, one of ...
MILAN KUNDERA
We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't under...
MILAN KUNDERA
Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.
MILAN KUNDERA
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on ...
MILAN KUNDERA
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one fe...
MILAN KUNDERA
Missão, Tereza, é uma palavra idiota. Eu não tenho missão. Ninguém tem missão. E é um alívio...
MILAN KUNDERA
The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of th...
MILAN KUNDERA
Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at...
MILAN KUNDERA
given the nature of the human couple, the love of a man and a woman is a priori inferior to that whi...
MILAN KUNDERA
No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals we...
MILAN KUNDERA
I understand you, and I shall not attempt to make you change your mind. I am too old to want to impr...
MILAN KUNDERA
Not only have people stopped trying to be attractive when they are out among other people, but they ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Not only have people stopped trying to be
attractive when they are out among other people, but...
MILAN KUNDERA
In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to u...
MILAN KUNDERA
The best actors do not let the wheels show.
MILAN KUNDERA
Because to live in a world in which no one is forgiven, where all are irredeemable, is the same a...
MILAN KUNDERA
Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is ...
MILAN KUNDERA
It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothes...
MILAN KUNDERA
For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from t...
MILAN KUNDERA
For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves not others, was possible only away from the ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Horror is a shock, a time of utter blindness. Horror lacks every hint of beauty. All we can see is t...
MILAN KUNDERA
Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where...
MILAN KUNDERA
It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of...
MILAN KUNDERA
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has...
MILAN KUNDERA
We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our em...
MILAN KUNDERA
Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.
MILAN KUNDERA
I find myself fascinating.
MILAN KUNDERA
This is the image from which he was born...... Characters are not born, like people, of woman; they ...
MILAN KUNDERA
People who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all.
MILAN KUNDERA
Having had occasion in the past to observe Communist statesmen, I saw with surprise that they were o...
MILAN KUNDERA
A man is responsible for his ignorance.
MILAN KUNDERA
Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said.
Because love means renouncing strength,"...
MILAN KUNDERA
Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all...
MILAN KUNDERA
The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows n...
MILAN KUNDERA
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
MILAN KUNDERA
loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.
MILAN KUNDERA
There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We ...
MILAN KUNDERA
I want you to be weak. As weak as I am.
MILAN KUNDERA
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records ever...
MILAN KUNDERA
she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as...
MILAN KUNDERA
She had an overwhelming desire to tell him, like the most banal of women. Don't let me go, hold me t...
MILAN KUNDERA
The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed...
MILAN KUNDERA
[W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.
MILAN KUNDERA
During the twenty years of Odesseus' absence, the people of Ithaca retained many recollections of hi...
MILAN KUNDERA
ქვეყნისათვის სიცოცხლის გაწირვა: ყველ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Mesmerized, all she can do is watch this piece of her life move off; all she can do is watch it and ...
MILAN KUNDERA
All predictions are wrong, that's one of the few certainties granted to mankind.
MILAN KUNDERA
In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You...
MILAN KUNDERA
If in the past people would listen to music out of love for music, nowadays it roars everywhere and ...
MILAN KUNDERA
إذ يستطيع جيشان كبيران أن يتصارعا حتى الموت من أجل قضاي...
MILAN KUNDERA
A person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn't expect much from her reunions.
MILAN KUNDERA
That’s another enigma about memory, more basic than all the rest: do recollections have some measu...
MILAN KUNDERA
كلما كان الزمن الذي نخلفه وراءنا أكبر كلما أصبح الصوت ا...
MILAN KUNDERA
In Spanish añoranza comes from the verb añorar (to feel nostalgia), which comes from the Catalan e...
MILAN KUNDERA
Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person wh...
MILAN KUNDERA
تختفي الذكريات إذا لم تُستحضر مرة وأخرى في أحاديث الأص�...
MILAN KUNDERA
أتخيل انفعال كائنين يلتقيان بعد سنوات. قديما تعاشرا، ف�...
MILAN KUNDERA
Now time has a very different look; it is no longer the conquering present capturing the future; it ...
MILAN KUNDERA
When she is older she will see in these resemblances a regrettable uniformity among individuals (the...
MILAN KUNDERA
We will never cease our critique of those persons who distort the past, rewrite it, falsify it, who ...
MILAN KUNDERA
En griego, «regreso» se dice nostos. Algos significa “sufrimiento”. La nostalgia es, pues, el ...
MILAN KUNDERA
And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love...
MILAN KUNDERA
The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us...
MILAN KUNDERA
Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know ...
MILAN KUNDERA
To die; to decide to die; that's much easier for an adolescent than for an adult. What? Doesn't deat...
MILAN KUNDERA
The girl was grateful to the young man for every bit of flattery; she wanted to linger for a moment ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything ex...
MILAN KUNDERA
Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
MILAN KUNDERA
The only relationship that can make both partners happy is one in which sentimentality has no place ...
MILAN KUNDERA
But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.
MILAN KUNDERA
Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and ...
MILAN KUNDERA
When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of he...
MILAN KUNDERA
Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she...
MILAN KUNDERA
The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of f...
MILAN KUNDERA
In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone w...
MILAN KUNDERA
A young woman forced to keep drunks supplied with beer and siblings with clean underwear -instead of...
MILAN KUNDERA
I had all kinds of answers ready for the commissions that called me in and asked me what had made me...
MILAN KUNDERA
Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll...
MILAN KUNDERA
I know, brother, that you are a straightforward man, and that you pride yourself on it. But put one ...
MILAN KUNDERA
Certainty. Life's last and kindest gift.
MILAN KUNDERA
Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by t...
MILAN KUNDERA
Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists
MILAN KUNDERA
Yes, it's crazy. Love is either crazy or it's nothing at all.
MILAN KUNDERA
To laugh is to live profoundly.
MILAN KUNDERA
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting
MILAN KUNDERA
The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.
...
MILAN KUNDERA
There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age ...
MILAN KUNDERA