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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

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Growth Small Truth Yourself
I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Definition Passionate Poet Poetry Pursuit Reality
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 MILOSZ

Acceptance Defect Endurance Human Introduction Material Oneself Passive
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Betrayal Death Judgement People Theory Thinking True
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 child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Children Trust Truth Wisdom
All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Dress Existence Freedom Lost Prison White Wings Yourself
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
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

Date Death Feeling Poet Remember Safety Writing Yourself
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

Earth Forget Reason Sparkle Suffering Yourself
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
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.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Expression Form Generation Himself Inheritance Poet
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Existence Myself River Suffering
A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Hospital Human Walk Weakness Winter
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
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Anonymous Gun People Room Sound Truth Word

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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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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Popular Authors

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