David > David's Quotes

“Life shouldn’t be measured in hours for the vagueness in which they exist, but moments; moments are memorable and we could easily say that a short life filled with a stock of extraordinary memories is worth a thousand times what a long, boring and loveless one is.”
― Emiliano Campuzano, Cielo Por Tu Luz

“A word we throw around like we can even grasp it, like forever is something the human mind can comprehend.”
― Rick Yancey, The Last Star

“I wrestle with my mind, but seldom win.”
― Sudheer Reddy

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein

“If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“One of the most powerful lessons silence teaches us is to ponder”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“But how sane can the mind really be if it doesn't even know its own depth?”
― A.R.H

“Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists”
― Milan Kundera

“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass!

The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“She knew only too well that the song was a beautiful lie. As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the context of non-kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness. For none among us is superman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“But the people who struggle against what we call totalitarian regimes cannot function with queries and doubts. They, too, need certainties and simple truths to make the multitudes understand, to provoke collective tears.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements. Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Kitsch has its source in the categorical agreement with being.

But what is the basis of being? God? Mankind? Struggle? Love? Man? Woman?

Since opinions vary, there are various kitsches: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Communist, Fascist, democratic, feminist, European, American, national, international.

Since the days of the French Revolution, one half of Europe has been referred to as the left, the other half as the right. Yet to define one or the other by means of the theoretical principles it professes is all but impossible. And no wonder: political movements rest not so much on rational attitudes as on the fantasies, images, words, and archetypes that come together to make up this or that political kitsch.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being