The true enemy of man is generalization.
CZESLAW MILOSZI 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
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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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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
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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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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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The 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.
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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?
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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
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Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.
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I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
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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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Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.
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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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Language is the only homeland.
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For a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.
CZESLAW MILOSZ