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Milan Kundera Quotes (1929-2023)
Novelist
About Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Franco-Czech novelist born in Brno, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).
Best Milan Kundera Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Milan Kundera quotes.
“To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.”
“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.”
“When we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.”
“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect some day to suffer vertigo.”
“Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.”
“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.”
“We can regard the gulag as a septic tank used by totalitarian kitsch to dispose of its refuse.”
“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia.”
“Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it.”
Milan Kundera Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Milan Kundera quotes by topic.
Milan Kundera on Chance
Milan Kundera on Memory
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Milan Kundera on Intelligibility
“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.”
Milan Kundera on Evil
“Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.”
Milan Kundera on Stupidity
“Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.”
Milan Kundera on Dreams
“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 on Imagination
“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 on Communication
“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 on Right to die
“Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.”
Quotes About Milan Kundera
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Milan Kundera from others.
Nadine Gordimer on Milan Kundera
“(For Milan Kundera, "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting". Are we losing this battle?) NG: One of the most truthful and profound insights ever made.”
Nadine Gordimer "When Art Meets Politics" on Milan Kundera
“Kundera sees writers and artists as vital witnesses of the twentieth century as an age marked by tyranny, saying: 'People regard those days as an era of political trials, persecutions, forbidden books and legalised murder. But we who remember must bear witness; it was not only an epoch of terror, but also an epoch of lyricism, ruled hand in hand by the hangman and the poet.'”
Chen Jiangong on Milan Kundera
“I particularly like the works of Milan Kundera such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being. His observations on human nature are more penetrating than those of Solzhenitsyn.”
About Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Franco-Czech novelist born in Brno, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).