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 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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The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.
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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
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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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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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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.
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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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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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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
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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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And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.
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I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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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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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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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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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
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When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.
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Language is the only homeland.
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Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.
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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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Be young forever, seasons of the earth.
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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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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