On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZHe 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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Irony is the glory of slaves.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
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 -
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 -
The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
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 -
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 -
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.
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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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ