Quotes about Meaning

Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know the present? Is he in a position to make any judgment about it? Certainly not. For how can a person with no knowledge of the future understand the meaning of the present? If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred?

Ä°nsan hiçbir ÅŸeyi, hiçbir kimseyi ciddiye alamay?nca yaÅŸamak ne kadar da hüzün verici!

It was only an idea, a sudden flash, but it kept coming back to me, and I couldn't help thinking, why am I alive, what good is there in going on, but it's not true really, I didn't think anything of the sort, I was hardly thinking at all, I just imagined myself no longer alive and suddenly I felt such bliss, such strange bliss that I wanted to laugh and maybe really did begin to laugh.

all languages that derive from Latin form the word compassion by combining the prefix meaning with (com-) and the root meaning suffering

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.

If we only have one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.

Clearly they had different concerns, but she understood that in her boyfriend's mouth the word "loneliness" took on a more abstract, a grander meaning: going though life without drawing anyone's interest; talking without being heard; suffering without stirring compassion; thus, living as she has in fact lived ever since then.

Looked at from the outside, I haven't experienced anything. Looked at from the outside! But I have a feeling that my experience inside is worth writing about and could be interesting to everybody.

A single metaphor can give birth to love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.

Living, there is no happiness in that. Living: carrying one's painful self through the world. But being, being is happiness. Being: Becoming a fountain, a fountain on which the universe falls like warm rain. ? Milan Kundera, Immortality (Gardners Books; 1st edition, July 31, 2000) Originally published January 12th 1990.

Dramatic tension is the real curse of the novel, because it transforms everything, even the most beautiful pages, even the most surprising scenes and observations merely into steps leading to the final resolution, in which the meaning of everything that preceded is concentrated.

I think love is the core emotion. Without that, and I've certainly existed without that, it's a very empty life.