Ivan > Ivan's Quotes

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“There is no perfection only life”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“A single metaphor can give birth to love.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Physical love is unthinkable without violence.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“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.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.”
― Fromm, Eric, The Art of Loving

“Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.p97.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“The mature response to the problem of existence is love.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“Man’s happiness today consists in “having fun.” Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and “taking in” commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies—all are consumed, swallowed. The world is one great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones—and the eternally disappointed ones.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.”
― Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

“established views have frequently emerged not through a process of faultless reasoning, but through centuries of intellectual muddle. There may be no good reason for things to be the way they are.”
― Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“A mother, you son-of-a-bitch, is sacred!”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Świat się zmienia, słońce zachodzi, a wódka się kończy.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“I don't believe in Melitele, don't believe in the existence of other gods either, but I respect your choice, your sacrifice. Your belief. Because your faith and sacrifice, the price you're paying for your silence, will make you better, a greater being. Or, at least, it could. But my faithlessness can do nothing. It's powerless.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Love could not induce us to take on the burden of propagating the species without promising us the greatest happiness we could imagine.”
― Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

“The painter’s Volhynia Experiment can be seen as an attempt to hold back the tide of time, to preserve the native Ukrainian-Polish-Jewish social order, while tolerating emerging modern national differences. It can also be understood as a kind of alternative modernity, a multiculturalism avant la lettre,in which state policies were designed not to build a single nation, but rather to accommodate the inevitable differences among several.”
― Timothy Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine

“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague