Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.
CZESLAW MILOSZWhat is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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For a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.
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Be young forever, seasons of the earth.
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A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell of rotting apples, And grow a fair amount of nettles.
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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.
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Language is the only homeland.
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It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.
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I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this will not protect me. The word and the thought are over.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.
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Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
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Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZ