A Quote by Milan Kundera

Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.
One by one, these governments came undone, and were forced into IMF tutelage (and national illegitimacy) by the careening oil prices, the debt imbroglio, and falling terms of trade. The last of these governments to fall were the Communist regimes of eastern Europe, which have now gone the way of other Third World countries. The second in the cascade of bifurcations is thus symbolized by 1989.
What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered, and conducted wars, war criminals? War criminals are not confined to the Axis Powers alone. Roosevelt and Churchill are no less war criminals than Hitler and Mussolini. England, America and Russia have all of them got their hands dyed more or less red - not merely Germany and Japan.
And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married.
The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation (...)The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it.
One of the things I loved about Black Sabbath was, when we were on the road, there were times we had been on the road for so long and we were tired and we were exhausted. We would show up at gigs and we were so tired that we would be fast asleep in the dressing room. Our road manager would come in and say, '20 minutes, guys.'
I've opposed black regimes and white regimes, leftist regimes and rightist regimes. I'm close to Aristide because I have respect for him, but all that is beside the point.
We were expelled from Paradise, but it was not destroyed. The expulsion from Paradise was in one sense a piece of good fortune, for if we had not been expelled, Paradise would have had to be destroyed.
Santa Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the U.S. is a paradise. Paradise is just paradise. Mournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is paradise. There is no other.
I am convinced that the majority of people to-day have good, generous feelings which they can never know, never experience, because of some fear, some repression. I do not believe that people would be villains, thieves, murderers and sexual criminals if they were freed from legal restraint.
I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise--a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames--but still a paradise.
The attitudes of many police organizations were extremely negative to the prospect of Rap, and many officials weren't afraid to say that they were against it. To them, Rappers were just criminals waiting to get caught.
Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. ... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.
Refuse to seek for the road to paradise, because every beautiful place is already a paradise!
There's some criminals that wear badges. Guess what? There's some criminals that work in the media. There's some criminals that are football coaches. There's some criminals that are politicians. There are criminals that work in churches.
There were many good years. Good decades, good centuries. We believed we were living in paradise. Perhaps that was our downfall. We wanted our lives to be perfect, so we ignored imperfections. Problems were magnified through inattention and war might have become inevitable if the Bore hadn't ever made.
I have never understood why people identify with criminals: even if your father and grandfather were criminal, you have to find a way to be free.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!