Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAWhen I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.
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And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.
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There’s simply too much fuss about myself.
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There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.
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God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
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It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
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Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn’t possible to save mankind.
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Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
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I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
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Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
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Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA