Look! Half of those you see at least ugly! To be ugly! Is this also a part of human rights? Do you know that he carries his ugliness throughout his life? Without any comfort? Your gender too, you did not choose it. You did not choose the color of your eyes or the century in which you live. Nor your country. Nor your mother. Not anything is important. The rights that a person can obtain are only related to trivialities, and there is no reason for the conflict about them or writing famous advertisements about them.
by Milan Kundera
(0 Reviews)
In the excerpt from Milan Kundera's "The Festival of Insignificance," the notion of physical appearance and its implication on human rights is examined. The speaker emphasizes that some individuals bear the burden of being perceived as ugly throughout their lives, raising questions about the fairness of such judgments. This suggests that aspects of identity, such as appearance and other innate characteristics, are beyond a person's control, paralleling the complexities surrounding gender, ethnicity, and even the circumstances of one's birth. Furthermore, the text challenges the significance attributed to what are seen as personal rights and issues, implying they are often trivial in comparison to the larger existential dilemmas of life. The author argues that rather than igniting conflict over superficial rights or differences, one should recognize the inherent absurdities of human existence, suggesting that our struggles often revolve around matters that hold little true importance in the grand scheme of life.

Stats

Categories
Votes
0
Page views
1
Update
February 23, 2025

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in The Festival of Insignificance

More »

Popular quotes

Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
by Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes.
by Mitch Albom
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins.
by Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
by Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization.
by Mitch Albom
I have the tendency to be nervous at the sight of trouble looming. As the danger draws near, I become less nervous. When the peril is at hand, I swell with fierceness. As I grapple with my assailant, I am without fear and fight to the finish with little thought of injury.
by Jean Sasson
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind.
by David Mitchell
There's lying," says Mum, fishing out the envelope she wrote the directions on from her handbag, "which is wrong, and there's creating the right impression, which is necessary.
by David Mitchell
The nun said, I can forgive the language. I'm not sure I can forgive your making an obscene gesture at your mother. Ya gotta know her, Holland said. If you knew her, you'd give her the finger, too.
by John Sandford
Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.
by David Mitchell