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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.

Czeslaw Milosz

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
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
Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Divide Poetry Yourself
I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Friendship Myself Time
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
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
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
Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Distant Love Way Yourself
A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Hospital Human Walk Weakness Winter
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
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Circle Day End Repair World
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
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
The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Environment Oneself Shame
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
The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

General Oneself Poetry Purpose Reminder

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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