Aphorize’s Reviews > The Unbearable Lightness of Being > Status Update

If rejection and privilege are the same, if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light.

"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."

"What us unique about the 'I' hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual 'I' is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered."

"How defenceless we are in the face of flattery!"

Frankly, the book is quite deep. It's not an easy reading. There are lots of thoughts going in the head. So took a day or two rest to absorb it. On this page the quote attracted me the most was "In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted"

"A man who loses his privacy loses everything"

"Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night"

"But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave."

"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth."

"World of immodesty, where youth and beauty mean nothing, where the world is nothing but a vast concentration camp of bodies, one like the next, with souls invisible"