“...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.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“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.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“I am not in favor of imposing happiness on people. Everyone has a right to his bad wine, to his stupidity, and to his dirty fingernails.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“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 mornings that determine a man's character.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Long ago one of the Cynic philosophers strutted through the streets of Athens in a torn mantle to make himself admired by everyone by displaying his contempt for convention. One day Socrates met him and said: 'I see your vanity through the hole in your mantle.' Your dirt too, sir, is vanity, and your vanity is dirty.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“لو لم أر صورتي في المرآة, و طُلب منّي وصف هيئتي الخارجية انطلاقاً من معرفتي بنفسي, لرسمت صورة لا صلة لها بصورتي التي تُرى! فأنا لست مطلقاً ما أبدو عليه”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“إذا توافرت لكل انسان إمكانية ان يقتل سرا و عن بعد ،فإن الإنسانية ستختفي خلال بضع دقائق”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“لا شيء كالغيرة يمتص كائنا انسانيا بكامله”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“الحب يجعل المرأة المحبوبة أكثر جمالا”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“الرغبة في أن تكون محط إعجاب ، غير قابلة للإشباع”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Even painful memories are ties that bind.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Jealousy is like a raging toothache. One cannot do anything when one is jealous, not even sit down. Once can only come and go. Back and forth.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“لا أفهم كيف يمكن للمرء أن يتحدث عن الحرية دون أن يُلقي بهذا العبء عن كاهله. مثل شجرة موجودة في موطنها الذي لا تستطيع أن تنمو فيه، تكون الشجرة في موطنها حيث تجد الأرض الخصبة.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Blonde hair and black hair are the two poles of human nature. Black hair signifies virility, courage, frankness, activity, whereas blonde hair symbolises femininity, tenderness, weakness, and passivity. Therefore a blonde is in fact doubly a woman. A princess can only be blonde. That's also why, to be as feminine as possible, women dye their hair yellow- but never black"
"I'm curious about how pigments exercise their influence over the human soul", said Bertlef doubtfully.
"it's not a matter of pigments. A blonde unconsciously adapts herself to her hair. Especially if the blonde is a brunette who dyes her hair yellow. She tries to be faithful to her hair colour and behaves like a fragile creature, a shallow doll, she demands tenderness and service, courtesy and alimony, she's incapable of doing anything for herself, all refinement on the outside and coarseness on the inside. If black hair became a universal fashion, life on this world would clearly be better. It would be the most useful social reform ever achieved.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“إن الشقراء إمرأة مضاعفة مرتين ذلك السبب أن الأميرة لابد أن تكون بشعر أشقر .
وذلك هو السبب في أن النساء - كي يكن أكثر أنوثة - يلون شعرهن بالأشقر لا بالأسود أبدا”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“إن الاستمتاع بالطعام يحدث فقط في جو من المحبة”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Even a life of suffering has a mysterious value. Even a life on the threshold of death is a thing of splendor. Anyone who has not looked death in the face does not know this, but I know it ...”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“ثمّ علي بعد ذلك أن أتساءل عن طبيعة العالم الذي سيعيش فيه طفلي. فسرعان ما ستنتزعه المدرسة مني لتشحن رأسه بأكاذيب أفنيت حياتي في مقاومتها. أأترك ابني يصير أمام عينيّ غبياً خانعاً؟ أم ألقّنه أفكاري، وأنظر إليه يتعذب وهو يخوض الصراعات نفسها التي خضتها قبله؟”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“But I can cite ten other reasons for not being a father."
"First of all, I don't like motherhood," said Jakub, and he broke off pensively. "Our century has already unmasked all myths. Childhood has long ceased to be an age of innocence. Freud discovered infant sexuality and told us all about Oedipus. Only Jocasta remains untouchable; no one dares tear off her veil. Motherhood is the last and greatest taboo, the one that harbors the most grievous curse. There is no stronger bond than the one that shackles mother to child. This bond cripples the child's soul forever and prepares for the mother, when her son has grown up, the most cruel of all the griefs of love. I say that motherhood is a curse, and I refuse to contribute to it."
"Another reason I don't want to add to the number of mothers," said Jakub with some embarrassment, "is that I love the female body, and I am disgusted by the thought of my beloved's breast becoming a milk-bag."
"The doctor here will certainly confirm that physicians and nurses treat women hospitalized after an aborted pregnancy more harshly than those who have given birth, and show some contempt toward them even though they themselves will, at least once in their lives, need a similar operation. But for them it's a reflex stronger than any kind of thought, because the cult of procreation is an imperative of nature. That's why it's useless to look for the slightest rational argument in natalist propaganda. Do you perhaps think it's the voice of Jesus you're hearing in the natalist morality of the church? Do you think it's the voice of Marx you're hearing in the natalist propaganda of the Communist state? Impelled merely by the desire to perpetuate the species, mankind will end up smothering itself on its small planet. But the natalist propaganda mill grinds on, and the public is moved to tears by pictures of nursing mothers and infants making faces. It disgusts me. It chills me to think that, along with millions of other enthusiasts, I could be bending over a cradle with a silly smile."
"And of course I also have to ask myself what sort of world I'd be sending my child into. School soon takes him away to stuff his head with the falsehoods I've fought in vain against all my life. Should I see my son become a conformist fool? Or should I instill my own ideas into him and see him suffer because he'll be dragged into the same conflicts I was?"
"And of course I also have to think of myself. In this country children pay for their parents' disobedience, and parents for their children's disobedience. How many young people have been denied education because their parents fell into disgrace? And how many parents have chosen permanent cowardice for the sole purpose of preventing harm to their children? Anyone who wants to preserve at least some freedom here shouldn't have children," Jakub said, and fell into silence.
"The last reason carries so much weight that it counts for five," said Jakub. "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 it merits being duplicated."
"And you have not found life to be good?" asked Bertlef.
Jakub tried to be precise, and said cautiously: "All I know is that I could never say with complete conviction: Man is a wonderful being and I want to reproduce him.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“And Jakub realized that this child had done no harm, that he was not guilty of anything, and yet had been born with bad eyes and would have them forever. And he reflected further that what he had held against others was something given, something they came into the world with and carried with them like a heavy wire fence. He reflected that he had no privileged right to high-mindedness and that the highest degree of high-mindedness is to love people even though they are murderers.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Svijetla kosa i tamna kosa, to su dva pola ljudskog karaktera. Tamna kosa znači muževnost, odvažnost, otvorenost i poduzetnost, dok je svijetla kosa simbol ženstvenosti, nježnosti, bespomoćnosti i pasivnosti. Plavuša je, prema tome, dvostruka žena. Princeza mora biti plavokosa. Zato žene, da bi bile ženstvenije, boje kosu u žuto, a nikad u crno.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“The only thing that makes me somewhat sceptical regarding human procreation is the unintelligent selection of parents. Some of the most unattractive individuals in the world feel they must multiply at all costs. They are apparently under the illusion that the burden of ugliness becomes lighter if it is shared with descendants.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Знаете ли, аз мисля, че животът трябва да се приема такъв, какъвто е. (...) Всичко е в божиите ръце и ние не знаем нищо за утрешния ден, с което искам да кажа, че да приемаш живота такъв, какъвто е, означава да приемеш непредсказуемото. А детето е негов събирателен образ. Детето е самата непредсказуемост. Не знаеш какво ще излезе от него, какво ще ти донесе и точно затова трябва да го приемеш. В противен случай живееш наполовина, живееш като човек, който не умее да плува и смао шляпа край брега, макар че истинското море е на дълбокото.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Pravda, u stvari, i ne treba da nas previše zanima. Pravda nije ljudska stvar. Postoji pravda slijepih i krutih zakona, a osim nje možda i neka viša pravda, ali tu ja ne razumijem. Uvijek mi se činilo da na ovom svijetu živim izvan pravde. Pravda me se ne tiče. Pravda je nešto izvan mene i iznad mene. Kako god se uzme, nešto neljudsko. Nikad neću surađivati s tom odvratnom silom.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is a virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“Чудаците не живеят зле, стига да имат късмет хората да се съобразяват с чудачествата им.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
“... he realized that the path of love, which Bertlef had suggested, was closed to him; it was the path of saints, not of ordinary men.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Farewell Waltz
Milan Kundera
Born place: in Brno, Czech Republic
Born date April 1, 1929
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“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from We Should All Be Feminists
“Perhaps, deep down inside that rugged shell of yours, there is a little girl desperately waiting for her Prince Charming to propose."
"Of course there is. Only until now, I'd been pretty successful at keeping that little brat's mouth shut."
"What will your answer be if he asks?"
"You're funny. He can't ask. I'll find a way to be bitchy enough for the next forty years so that perfect moment never comes."
"You seem to have a good handle on that little girl after all.”
― Sylvain Neuvel, quote from Sleeping Giants
“His suspicion that he was not going in the right direction tortmented him more and more. At last he had the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction, to the very end of the handful of days that was left to him, unhappy moonstruck pilgrim, whose April was to be cut off short.”
― Ismail Kadare, quote from Broken April
“The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, quote from The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory
“You mean we're going chronological order within each author?" he gasped. "But no one even knows for sure when Shakespeare wrote his plays!"
"Well," I blustered, "we know he wrote Romeo and Juliet before The Tempest. I'd like to see that reflected on our shelves."
George says that was one of the few times he has seriously contemplated divorce.”
― Anne Fadiman, quote from Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
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The Seven Storey Mou...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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