Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZPoetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZFrom 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 MILOSZI 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 MILOSZMen will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe 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 MILOSZEvery 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 MILOSZI 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 MILOSZAll was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZA weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
CZESLAW MILOSZGrow 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 MILOSZOn the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZThe voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.
CZESLAW MILOSZWe have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
CZESLAW MILOSZ