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 MILOSZEven 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.
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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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.
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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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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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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.
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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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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Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
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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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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.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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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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I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
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Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.
CZESLAW MILOSZ