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 SZYMBORSKASuch certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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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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Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
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I 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.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
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.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’m drowning in papers.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
I’m fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
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Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?
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Dying – you can’t do that to a cat.
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
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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!
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The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA -
Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA