Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.
CZESLAW MILOSZHuman 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
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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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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.
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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
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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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What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
CZESLAW MILOSZ -
The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.
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He returns years later, has no demands. He wants only one, most precious thing: To see, purely and simply, without name, Without expectations, fears, or hopes, At the edge where there is no I or not-I.
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Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
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Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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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.
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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
CZESLAW MILOSZ