The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone. – Milan Kundera
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. – Milan Kundera
Mankinds 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
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novels only morality. – Milan Kundera
Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Whos sorry for a gnat or girl? – Elizabeth Barrett Browning