Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.
CZESLAW MILOSZMen will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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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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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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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.
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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.
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Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
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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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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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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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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.
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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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.
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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ