Milan Kundera Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Milan Kundera quotes, Milan Kundera sayings, and Milan Kundera proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

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. Milan Kundera
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace. Milan Kundera
Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue — perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one. Milan Kundera
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace. Milan Kundera
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. Milan Kundera
Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation. Milan Kundera
To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it. Milan Kundera
Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. Milan Kundera
If excitement is a mechanism our Creator uses for His own amusement, love is something that belongs to us alone and enables us to flee the Creator. Love is our freedom. Love lies beyond "Es Muss sein! Milan Kundera
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. It is wrong then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences, but it is right to chide people for being blind to such coincidences in their daily lives. For they thereby deprive their lives of a dimension of beauty Milan Kundera
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves that we have lost. Milan Kundera
Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful. Milan Kundera
Young is the one that plunges in the future and never looks back. Milan Kundera
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Milan Kundera
The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone. Milan Kundera
Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. Milan Kundera
Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company. Milan Kundera
Immortality is a ridiculous illusion, an empty word, a butterfly net chasing the wind. Milan Kundera
Immortality no longer interests the weary old man at all. Milan Kundera
Happiness is the longing for repetition. Milan Kundera
A single metaphor can give birth to love. Milan Kundera
Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. Milan Kundera
The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone. Milan Kundera
Immortality is a ridiculous illusion, an empty word, a butterfly net chasing the wind. Milan Kundera
Great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. Milan Kundera
The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure. Milan Kundera
Scepticism does not abolish the world, it turns it into questions. Milan Kundera
The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness. Milan Kundera
The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure. Milan Kundera
Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud. Milan Kundera