Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. -Milan Kundera Attitude
The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. -Milan Kundera Attitude
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality. -Milan Kundera Knowledge
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight. -Milan Kundera Fear
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos. -Milan Kundera Imagination
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 Peace
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. -Milan Kundera Jealousy
You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself. -Milan Kundera Imagination
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. -Milan Kundera Wisdom
The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. -Milan Kundera Wisdom
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. -Milan Kundera Beauty
