Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAWe’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.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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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.
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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Whether you want it or not, your genes have a political past, your skin a political tone. your eyes a political color. You walk with political steps on political ground.
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I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
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I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
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I’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
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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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The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
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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.
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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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I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
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No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
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Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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Animals don’t even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. The conscious impulse to change one’s appearance is found only among humans.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA