What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZYou who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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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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The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.
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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.
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You who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!
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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
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I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished No more durable than old customs, family rituals, Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.
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It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.
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I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
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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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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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I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace.
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Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.
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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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A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.
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Every poet depends upon generations who wrote in his native tongue; he inherits styles and forms elaborated by those who lived before him. At the same time, though, he feels that those old means of expression are not adequate to his own experience.
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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
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I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
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Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.
CZESLAW MILOSZ