Quote

The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.

Milan Kundera

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Milan Kundera
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: April 1
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Ability
Lying
Human
Extend
Humans
Oneself
People
Exist
Lies
Outside
Worth

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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We go through the present blindfolded... Only later, when the blindfold is removed and we examine the past, do we realize what we've been through and understand what it means.
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The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.
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A man able to think isn't defeated - even when he is defeated.
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What is unique about the I hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual I is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.
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When graves are covered with stones, the dead can no longer get out. But the dead can't go out anyway! What difference does it make whether they're covered with soil or stones?
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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.
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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.
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The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history.
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Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
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Only the basic situations in life occur only once, never to return. For a man to be a man, he must be fully aware of this never-to-return. (p.148)
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He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.
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And I ran after that voice through the streets so as not to lose sight of the splendid wreath of bodies gliding over the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any.
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The beauty of New York is unintentional it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.
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Sad company is bad company.
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The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.
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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.
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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.
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I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them I have nothing in common with them.
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To laugh is to live profoundly.
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The love between dog and man is idyllic, dogs were never expelled from paradise.
Milan Kundera