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Language is the only homeland.

Czeslaw Milosz

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
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
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
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
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 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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

General Oneself Poetry Purpose Reminder
The soul exceeds its circumstances.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circumstance Exceed Soul
At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Doubt Myself Night Precious Sunrise
Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Difference Fall Love
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Dress Existence Freedom Lost Prison White Wings Yourself
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

History Myself Stupidity Volume
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
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
The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better History Inspirational Passion Reason Voice
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
The true enemy of man is generalization.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Enemy Generalization Man True
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
I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this will not protect me. The word and the thought are over.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Bone Flesh Myself Thinking
Language is the only homeland.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Home Land Language
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
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Hospital Human Walk Weakness Winter
The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Children Trust Truth Wisdom
I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Friendship Myself Time
When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Curse Earth Fate Myself
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Book Born Imagination Myself People Radiant Woman
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

Language is the only homeland.

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Language is the only homeland.

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