There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos. Milan Kundera More Quotes by Milan Kundera More Quotes From Milan Kundera Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary. Milan Kundera trapshuman-naturehate I feel a frantic desire to free myself. To start all over again and in another way. Milan Kundera desirefeelsway The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order. Milan Kundera longinglife-isorder Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. Milan Kundera unbearablegoalsuffering On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth. Milan Kundera unbearable-lightness-of-beingchaoslying I understand you, and I shall not attempt to make you change your mind. I am too old to want to improve the world. I have told you what I think, and that is all. I shall remain your friend even if you act contrary to my convictions, and I shall help you even if I disagree with you. Milan Kundera mindworldthinking Most people willingly deceive themselves with a doubly false faith; they believe in eternal memory (of men, things, deeds, peoples) and in rectification (of deeds, errors, sins, injustice). Both are sham. The truth lies at the opposite end of the scale: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be rectified. All rectification (both vengeance and forgiveness) will be taken over by oblivion. Milan Kundera memoriesbelievelying The emotion of love gives all of us a misleading illusion of knowing the other. Milan Kundera emotionknowinggiving People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end. Milan Kundera motivationalinspirationallife Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Milan Kundera communicationgamesdream When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. Milan Kundera mindheartinspirational 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. Milan Kundera unbearable-lightness-of-beingperfectwant Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. Milan Kundera naturelovepeace You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange. Milan Kundera numberslovetwo To laugh is to live profoundly. Milan Kundera chaoslaughing Living, there is no happiness in that. Living: carrying one’s painful self through the world. But being, being is happiness. Being: Becoming a fountain, a fountain on which the universe falls like warm rain. Milan Kundera selfrainfall In the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable. Milan Kundera unbearablemindhome Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile. Milan Kundera finding-yourselfbornintelligent The heaviest of burdens is simultaneously an image of life's most intense fullfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into new heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? Milan Kundera realairmen Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know the present? Is he in a position to make any judgment about it? Certainly not. For how can a person with no knowledge of the future understand the meaning of the present? If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred? Milan Kundera certainhatredmen
