More Quotes by Milan Kundera
Modern stupidity means not ignorance but the nonthought of received ideas.
There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.
a man possessed with peace is always smiling.
When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.
The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.
The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was... The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.
The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
