black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.

Czeslaw Milosz

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
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
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
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
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
When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Born Family Poet Writing
Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Believe Discover Human Learning Life Work
Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Distant Love Way Yourself
The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better History Inspirational Passion Reason Voice
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
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
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
I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance End Impossible Regret
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
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
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
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
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Appearance End Man Old Repeat White Willing World
Consciousness even in my sleep changes primary colors. The features of my face melt like a wax doll in the fire. And who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Change Color Conscious Consent Man Primary Sleep
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 MILOSZ

Art Day Irony Myself Praise Thinking True Value
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Live Shadow Strength
The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Difficult Oneself Person Poetry Purpose Reminder
Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Echo Mountain Poetry
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
The true enemy of man is generalization.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Enemy Generalization Man True
I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Definition Passionate Poet Poetry Pursuit Reality
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

Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes