What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZIrony is the glory of slaves.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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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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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.
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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.
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
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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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Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
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.
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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
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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.
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I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.
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It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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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.
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The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.
CZESLAW MILOSZ