The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Great novels endure because they reveal truths about human life that persist despite societal forgetting.
- In plain terms
- Timeless books keep showing us things about life we tend to forget.
- What can you take from it?
- Literature preserves insights that time tries to erase.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What old book still astonishes you today?
- What truths do we forget about being human?
Another view
Not every great novel survives equally across cultures.
More from Milan Kundera
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.
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