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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.

Czeslaw Milosz

From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife, what grain will be saved? My son, believe me, nothing remains, Only adult toil, the furrow of fate in the palm. Only toil, Nothing more.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Believe Flame Knife Life Myself
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Myself Skills Strength Trace Wisdom Young
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Hands Love Man Moon Weight
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Betrayal Death Judgement People Theory Thinking True
What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Nation People Poetry Save
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Achievement Allow Finish Oneself Reality Settle Thinking
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Expression Form Generation Himself Inheritance Poet
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Anonymous Gun People Room Sound Truth Word
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 MILOSZ

Acceptance Defect Endurance Human Introduction Material Oneself Passive
And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Branch Each Other Follow Line World
I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better Compose Form Philosophy Poetry
All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

End High Independent Ourselves Wisdom
Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Small Truth Yourself
We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Different Efficient Form Reaction Technique

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.

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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.

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