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Yes, the essence of every lov...

Yes, the essence of every love is a child, and it makes no difference at all whether it has ever actually been conceived or born. In the algebra of love a child is the symbol of the magical sum of two beings.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Laughter, on the other hand, ...

Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry. That's why I tell you yet again, and you want to keep in mind: Boccaccio doesn't understand love. Love can never be laughable. Love has nothing in common with laughter.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Only from the perspective of ...

Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

She knew that there were all ...

She knew that there were all kinds of ways to make a conquest and that one of the surest roads to a woman's genitals was through her sadness.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Remembering our past, carryin...

Remembering our past, carrying it around with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To ensure that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. They are our mirror; our memory; we ask nothing of them but that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

High culture is nothing but a...

High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Speed is the form of ecstasy ...

Speed is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man. As opposed to a motorcyclist, the runner is always present in his body, forever required to think about his blisters, his exhaustion; when he runs he feels his weight, his age, more conscious than ever of himself and of his time of life. This all changes when man delegates the faculty of speed to a machine: from then on, his own body is outside the process, and he gives over to a speed that is noncorporeal, nonmaterial, pure speed, speed itself, ecstasy speed.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

To rebel against being born a...

To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Leroy interrupted Chantal's f...

Leroy interrupted Chantal's fantasies: "Freedom? As you live our your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom. You're free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or euphoria.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

The novel is a territory wher...

The novel is a territory where one does not make assertions; it is a territory of play and of hypotheses.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

...he took a look at the blon...

...he took a look at the blond girl's eyes and knew that he must not take part in the rigged game in which the ephemeral passes for the eternal and the small for the big, that he must not take part in the rigged game called love.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

In eroticism as dance: one of...

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

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Biographers know nothing abou...

Biographers know nothing about the intimate sex lives of their own wives, but they think they know all about Stendhal's or Faulkner's.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

But deep down she said to her...

But deep down she said to herself, Franz maybe strong, but his strength is directed outward; when it comes to the people he lives with, the people he's loves, he's weak. Franz's weakness is called goodness. Franz would never give Sabina orders. He would never command her, as Tomas had, to lay the mirror on the floor and walk back and forth on it naked. Not that he lacks sensuality; he simply lacks the strength to give orders. There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

How did the senator know that...

How did the senator know that children meant happiness? Could he see into their souls? What if the moment they were out of sight, three of them jumped the fourth and began beating him up?

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

He was no longer quite sure w...

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

The bloody massacre in Bangla...

The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Allende drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the war in the Sinai Desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai, and so on and so forth until ultimately everyone lets everything be forgotten.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

But just make someone who has...

But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science , instantly fades away.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Tereza had gone back to sleep...

Tereza had gone back to sleep; he could not. He pictured her death. She was dead and having terrible nightmares; but because she was dead, he was unable to wake her from them. Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Forgive me," he went on. "For...

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

Milan Kundera 457 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

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Советских актёров часто ставят в пример как образец духовной силы, национальной гордости и внутренней красоты. Они стали символами эпохи, носителями культуры и нравственности. Но, как известно, за кул...

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