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 MILOSZTwo attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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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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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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Every poet depends upon generations who wrote in his native tongue; he inherits styles and forms elaborated by those who lived before him. At the same time, though, he feels that those old means of expression are not adequate to his own experience.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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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.
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Language is the only homeland.
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Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
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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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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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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.
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Be young forever, seasons of the earth.
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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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I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace.
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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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ