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.
CZESLAW MILOSZOur memory is childish and it saves only what we need.
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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Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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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.
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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
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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 am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.
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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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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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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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Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?
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When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
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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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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 is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
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What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
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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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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
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Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.
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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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A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ