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Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

Wislawa Szymborska

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Beautiful Certain Confidence Life Time
And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Forever Myself Perspective Willing
After every war someone has to tidy up.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Clean Deep Hurt War
I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Angel Count Head Myself Sleep
Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Myself Poem Quick Reading Time Work Writing
Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Better Knowledge People
Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Common Poet Publish Reading Understand
Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Fortune Inspirational Place Poet Select
Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Comic Remember Rich Talk Variety Yourself
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Beginning Book Half Myself Open
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 SZYMBORSKA

Beginning Creativity Humanity Kind Life Love Man Myself Understand
I’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Dog Edition Myself Old Revision Work World
My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Choice Demand Loss Myself Rejection Way
Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Comparison Knowledge World
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

Destroy Future Myself Past Silence Word
Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

Knowledge Leadership Life Maintain Question Temperature

Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

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Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

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