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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?

Czeslaw Milosz

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
What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Nation People Poetry Save
From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife, what grain will be saved? My son, believe me, nothing remains, Only adult toil, the furrow of fate in the palm. Only toil, Nothing more.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Believe Flame Knife Life Myself
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

Custom Durable Language Myself
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
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Break Death Kind Life Moments Partition Separate Vision
I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better Compose Form Philosophy Poetry
It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

End Expedition Myself Sweet Thinking
A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Hospital Human Walk Weakness Winter
Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Divide Poetry Yourself
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

History Myself Stupidity Volume
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Betrayal Death Judgement People Theory Thinking True
Irony is the glory of slaves.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Glory Irony One Liner Slave
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
When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Curse Earth Fate Myself
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
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
Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Date Death Feeling Poet Remember Safety Writing 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
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Kind Man Myself
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
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
When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Beyond Line Side Sunset World
And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Branch Each Other Follow Line World

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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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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Popular Authors

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