Home / Quotes / Quote by Milan Kundera

Quote by Milan Kundera

“High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.”

Quote by Milan Kundera

Author

Milan Kundera is a renowned Czech-French writer known for his profound psychological insights and unique narrative techniques. His works often explore themes of personal freedom, love, morality, and existentialism, with notable titles including 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' and 'The Joke'. more

You May Also Like

“Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.”

Culture Dangerous Band Pursue

Author:Edith Wharton

“The literary artist lends verbal depth to the visual. The visual artist provides visible articulation for the literary.”

Art Artist Culture Depth Visuals Visible Visual Art Articulation Visual Artist

Book:Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

Source: Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

“For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.”

Has Beens Two Light Culture Differences Mankind Labor Infinite Corners Chosen Poison Honey Dirt Sweetness Hives Bees And Honey

Author:Jonathan Swift

“Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio - empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how - has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home - within the family, so to speak - our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.”

“Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.”

Mean Purpose Culture Behinds Existence Civilization Disappear Former Latter Agreement Subordination Subsistence Tacit

Author:Karl Kraus

“In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.”

Culture Women Rooms Talking Comes And Goes Muttering Sawdust Restless Nights

Author:T. S. Eliot

“As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit”

Mind May Culture Rich Produce Fruit Soil Productive Cultivation

Author:Seneca the Younger

“By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death”

Different Culture Differences Progress Civilization Favors Eliminating Suppressing

Author:Octavio Paz

“Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves”

Book:Human Intercourse

Source: Human Intercourse

“Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the coarse or centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved”

Men Art Form Culture Century Coarse

Author:Andre Malraux