Milan Kundera citáty

page 5

„Osoba, ktorá túži opustiť miesto, kde žije, je nešťastná osoba.“

„Vzťah, ktorý urobí oboch partnerov šťastnými, je vzťah, v ktorom sentimentálnosť nemá miesto a žiadny z partnerov si nerobí nároky na život a slobodu toho druhého.“

„Nemôžeš merať vzájomnú náklonnosť dvoch ľudských bytostí počtom slov, ktoré si vymenia.“

„Keď srdce prehovorí, myseľ považuje za neslušné namietať. V kráľovstve gýču vládne diktatúra srdca.“

„Psy sú naším spojením s rajom. Nepoznajú zlo, žiarlivosť ani nespokojnosť. Sedieť so psom na svahu kopca počas nádherného popoludnia znamená vrátiť sa do raja, kde ničnerobenie nebolo nudné - znamenalo pokoj.“

„Človek oddaný svojej viere je pokorný a má pokorne prijímať aj nespravodlivý trest.“

„Človek prechádza prítomnosťou so zaviazanými očami. Smie iba tušiť a hádať, čo vlastne žije. Až neskôr mu odviažu šatku z očí a on, pohliadnuc na minulosť, zistí čo žil a aký to malo zmysel.“

„Muži obdivujú ženy, ktoré hovoria ako knihy, ale berú si ženy, ktoré varia ako z kuchárskej knihy.“

„Boj človeka s mocou je bojom spomienok so zabudnutím.“

„Moc je najslabšia, keď je úplne neprimeraná. Keď hlupák vládne múdremu, slabý silnému, ohavná krásnemu.“

„Žiadne počínanie nie je samo o sebe dobré ani zlé. Až jeho miesto v poriadku ho urobí dobrým či zlým.“

„Byť básnikom, to znamená ísť vždy až na koniec.“

„Muž smie chcieť od ženy čokoľvek, ale ak nechce jednať ako surovec, musí jej umožniť, aby konala v súlade so svojimi najhlbšími sebaklamami.“

„Skepsa nemení svet na ničotu. Skepsa premieňa svet na otázky.“

„Štyridsiatnik nielenže nevyžaduje vernosť, ale cíti sa bezpečnejšie, ak majú jeho priateľky vážne známosti.“

„Ale keď silní boli príliš slabí na to, aby ublížili slabým, slabí museli byť dosť silní, na to aby odišli.“

„Grécke slovo pre „návrat“ je nostos. Algos znamená „utrpenie“. Nostalgia je teda utrpenie spôsobené neutíchajúcou túžbou po návrate.“

„Človek nikdy nemôže vedieť, čo má chcieť, pretože žije len jeden život a nemôže ho nijako porovnávať so svojimi predchádzajúcimi životmi, ani ho zdokonaliť v budúcom živote.“

„Z jedinej metafory môže vzniknúť láska.“

„Oko... bod, kde sa sústreďuje identita človeka.“

„Neexistuje dokonalosť, iba život.“

„Rada sa prechádzala po ulici s knihou pod pažou. Mala pre ňu rovnaký význam ako elegantná palica pre džentlmena pred sto rokmi. Odlišovala ju od ostatných.“

„Chcem, aby si bol slabý. Taký slabý ako ja.“

„Rada sa prechádzala po ulici s knihou v ruke. Odlišovalo ju to od ostatných.“

“If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders.”

“Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.”

“It is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.”

“How goodness heightens beauty!”

“It was futile to attack with reason the stout wall of irrational feelings that, as is known, is the stuff of which the female mind is made.”

“The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order.”

“But what had happened, had happened, and it was no longer possible to right anything.”

“All novels… are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?”

“We’ve known for a long time that it was no longer possible to overturn this world, nor reshape it, nor head off its dangerous headlong rush. There’s been only one possible resistance: to not take it seriously.”

“And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.”

“Having a child is to show an absolute accord with mankind. If I have a child, it's as though I'm saying: I was born and have tasted life and declare it so good that is merits being duplicated.”

“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.”

“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.”

“Art arises from sources other than logic." (p.32)”

“When you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful, and polite, you have hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true/sincere.”

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

“The ludicrous element in our feeling does not make them any less authentic.”

“She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.”

“But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)”

“Man reckons with immortality, and forgets to reckon with death.”

“For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.”

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

“If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him.”

“For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”

“What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating.”

“what's the matter?" he asked
"nothing"
"what do you want me to do for you?"
"i want you to be old. ten years older. twenty years older"
what she meant was: i want you to be weak. as weak as i am.”

“Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.”

“Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.”

“Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.”