We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.
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
-
-
Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Animals don’t even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. The conscious impulse to change one’s appearance is found only among humans.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
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.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
After every war someone has to tidy up.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’m fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA