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 MILOSZThe living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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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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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
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Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
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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 true enemy of man is generalization.
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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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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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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
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Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
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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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ