Quotes from Milan Kundera

Qué es el vértigo? ¿El miedo a la caída? ¿Pero por qué también nos da vértigo en un mirador provisto de una valla segura? El vértigo significa que la profundidad que se abre ante nosotros nos atrae, nos escude, despierta en nosotros el deseo de caer, del cual nos defendemos espantados.

Meni se, me?utim, ?ini da umjesto zidova svuda vidim samo kulise. A razaranje kulisa stvar je dobra i pravedna.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine - to dream about things that have not happened - is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would be quickly forgotten.

Ä°ki ayr? yüz fotoÄŸraf?n? yan yana koyduÄŸunda, onlar? birbirinden ay?ran ne çok ÅŸey olduÄŸunu görüp ÅŸa??r?rs?n. Ama iki yüz yirmi üçü birden kar??na serilince, bir anda gördüÄŸünün sadece tek bir yüzün çok say?da çeÅŸitlemesi olduÄŸunu ve birey diye bir ÅŸeyin hiçbir zaman var olmad???n? anl?yorsun.

Stjecanje kontrole nad ženskim razmišljanjem ima, naime, svoja strogo odre?ena pravila; onaj tko odlu?i ženu nagovarati, uvjeravati je razumnim argumentima i sli?no teško da ?e nešto posti?i. Kudikamo je pametnije odrediti osnovnu autostilizaciju žene (osnovne principe kojima se rukovodi, ideale, uvjerenja) i nastojati da se (pomo?u sofizma, alogi?ne demagogije itd.) željena odluka žene dovede u sklad s tom autostilizacijom.

He had come to find out that reality was more than a dream, much more than a dream!

We can never know what we want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.

It was the incommunicable scent of this country, its intangible essence, that she had brought along with her to France.

Il avait encore la peau recouverte d'acné juvénile et, pour que ça ne se voie pas, il portait sur son visage le masque de la révolte.

A ternura nasce no instante em que somos lançados no limiar da idade adulta e em que percebemos cheios de angústia as vantagens da infância, das quais não nos dávamos conta quando éramos crianças. A ternura é o susto que a idade adulta nos inspira.

Chi tende continuamente verso l'alto deve aspettarsi, prima o poi, di essere colto dalla vertigine.

Asl?nda, gerçekten ciddi olan sorular bir çocuÄŸun bile dile getirebileceÄŸi sorulard?r.Yaln?zca en çocuksu sorular gerçekten ciddi olan sorulard?r.Cevaplar? olmayan sorulard?r bunlar.Cevab? olmayan soru a??lamayacak bir engeldir.BaÅŸka bir deyiÅŸle insani olas?l?klar?n s?n?rlar?n? belirleyen ,insan varoluÅŸunun s?n?rlar?n? saptayan cevab? olmayan sorulard?r.

Staru gospodu lako je prepoznati po tome Å¡to se hvale pretrpljenim patnjama i prave od njih muzej u koji pozivaju svoje goste.

Any schoolboy can do experiments in the physics laboratory to test various scientific hypotheses. But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion(compassion) or not.

Ljubomora ispunjava misli potpunije nego najstrastveniji intelektualni rad. U mislima ne ostaje niti jedan slobodan trenutak. Ljubomoran ?ovjek ne zna što je dosada. ... Ljubomora je kao strašna zubobolja. Ne dopušta ?oveku da radi, ni da sjedi. Tjera ga da hoda, tamo-amo, tamo-amo.

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...And so....there is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison.

TekdüzeliÄŸi mutluluk üretirdi, s?k?nt? deÄŸil.

in his whole life he had never acted as he wished to act. He considered himself the administrator of his own immortality, and that responsibility tied him down and turned him stiff and prim.

Einmal ist keinmal

Only her husband had kept asking her questions, because love is a continual interrogation. I don't know of a better definition of love.

L'uomo sogna un mondo in cui il bene e il male siano nettamente distinguibili, e questo perché, innato e indomabile, esiste in lui il desiderio di giudicare prima di aver capito. Su questo desiderio sono fondate le religioni e le ideologie.

I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be. (I was frightened by the differences between one face and the next; none of them seemed to fit me properly, and I groped my way clumsily among them.