“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 , book Immortality

Source: Immortality

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what…" by Milan Kundera?
Milan Kundera photo
Milan Kundera 198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023

Related quotes

Clive Barker photo

“We each die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame as humiliation. We perish from despair. And, of course, we die for love.”

Clive Barker book Absolute Midnight

Source: Absolute Midnight

“But not to be acquainted with what is happening in literary France is to feel disgraced, and in the pecking order of literary criticism a Frenchman can humiliate an Englishman just as readily as an Englishman can humiliate an American, and an American a Canadian. One of Canada's most serious literary needs at present is some lesser nation to domineer over and shame by displays of superior taste.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Umberto Eco photo

“The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Ur-Fascism (1995)
Context: The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.

Francis Escudero photo

“This is a matter of national shame and pride. We must stand up and clean our backyard.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

"Task force hit for allowing dumping of Canada wastes",The Philippine Star, 10 September 2015, p. 10.
2015

P. J. O'Rourke photo

“You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Give War a Chance

Give War a Chance (1992)

Terry Brooks photo

“We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are.”

Terry Brooks The Druid of Shannara

Source: The Druid of Shannara

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Twenty-four Conversations with Borges, Including a Selection of Poems: Interviews by Roberto Alifano, 1981–1983 (1984)

Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“Charles Parker: We don't want to make large and ignominious public mistakes.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Strong Poison

Strong Poison (1930)

John Updike photo

“We hope the "real" person behind the words will be revealed as ignominiously as a shapeless snail without its shapely shell.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

On “consumeristic appetite for interviews,” New York Times (17 August 1986)

Related topics