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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.

Czeslaw Milosz

I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Change Earth Memories Present Report Thinking
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Earth Forget Reason Sparkle Suffering Yourself
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

Finding Growth Reality Small Travel Tree Truth
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Beyond Death Essence Forest Heaven Rise Run Sun Wait
The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Live Speak Story Talk Tribute
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Animal Country Destroy Flame Hard Past Speak Word
Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Difference Fall Love
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
You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Failure Myself Reach Try
You who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Death Illusion Live People Thinking
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
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
When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Curse Earth Fate Myself
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 MILOSZ

Demand Fear Himself Hope Precious Return See
It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Communication Experience Impossible Knowledge People
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

History Myself Stupidity Volume

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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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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Popular Authors

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