He returns years later, has no demands. He wants only one, most precious thing: To see, purely and simply, without name, Without expectations, fears, or hopes, At the edge where there is no I or not-I.
CZESLAW MILOSZTwo attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
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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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.
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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.
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Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
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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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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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And now I am ready to keep running When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death. I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest Where, beyond every essence, a new essence awaits.
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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.
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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ