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.
CZESLAW MILOSZTwo attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
-
-
I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Language is the only homeland.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Consciousness even in my sleep changes primary colors. The features of my face melt like a wax doll in the fire. And who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man?
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.
CZESLAW MILOSZ