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All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

Czeslaw Milosz

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Better Compose Form Philosophy Poetry
Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Divide Poetry Yourself
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

Beyond Death Essence Forest Heaven Rise Run Sun Wait
Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Believe Discover Human Learning Life Work
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
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
I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance End Impossible Regret
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Doubt Myself Night Precious Sunrise
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

Growth Hands Love Man Moon Weight
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
The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Environment Oneself Shame
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Bone Flesh Myself Thinking
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Awakening Call Lips Protest Run Scream Word
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

Book Born Imagination Myself People Radiant Woman
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Believe Flame Knife Life Myself

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

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All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

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