Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAPoets 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.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
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Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
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When it comes, you’ll be dreaming that you don’t need to breathe; that breathless silence is the music of the dark and it’s part of the rhythm to vanish like a spark.
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Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
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It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.
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Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
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Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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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.
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Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
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I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
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Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
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There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA