"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" Quotes

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.

The love between the two people is not an imitation of some great and powerful love. It is a love that is not determined by the past and is not directed toward the future.

The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite.

Mysticism is the metaphysical equivalent of a love affair.

The love of the soul is not an exalted form of sexual desire. The soul does not yearn for sexual pleasure; it yearns for the pleasure of the soul.

Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.