45 quotes
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
In the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of great distress.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
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.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Physical love is unthinkable without violence.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
We can regard the gulag as a septic tank used by totalitarian kitsch to dispose of its refuse.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect some day to suffer vertigo.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)