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 MILOSZEven 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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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?
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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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It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Language is the only homeland.
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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.
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At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
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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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Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
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The partition separating life from death is so tenuous. The unbelievable fragility of our organism suggests a vision on a screen: a kind of mist condenses itself into a human shape, lasts a moment and scatters.
CZESLAW MILOSZ