It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.
CZESLAW MILOSZGrow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
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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.
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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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Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.
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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.
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Irony is the glory of slaves.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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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