At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn’t possible to save mankind.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAThey say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
After every war someone has to tidy up.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.
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Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA






