Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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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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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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Our memory is childish and it saves only what we need.
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
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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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I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
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Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.
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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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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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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
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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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ