black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Environment Oneself Shame
Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Attribute Description Desire Eyes Himself See
Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Small Truth Yourself
The soul exceeds its circumstances.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circumstance Exceed Soul
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 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
What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Nation People Poetry Save
And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Branch Each Other Follow Line World
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Break Death Kind Life Moments Partition Separate Vision
Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance Defect Endurance Human Introduction Material Oneself Passive
Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Catch Hold Illusion Man
Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Echo Mountain Poetry
Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Fear Listening Night Wake Up Yourself
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

Art Day Irony Myself Praise Thinking True Value
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 MILOSZ

Appearance End Man Old Repeat White Willing World

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes