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 SZYMBORSKAI am a tarsier and a tarsier’s son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers, a tiny creature, made up of two pupils and whatever simply could not be left out.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
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I don’t know the role I’m playing. I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.
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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.
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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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Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
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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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Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
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We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.
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In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
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They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.
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I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.
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I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA






