What has no shadow has no strength to live.
CZESLAW MILOSZEvery 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.
More Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.
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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.
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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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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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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.
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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.
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It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.
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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.
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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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From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife, what grain will be saved? My son, believe me, nothing remains, Only adult toil, the furrow of fate in the palm. Only toil, Nothing more.
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.
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All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.
CZESLAW MILOSZ