Czeslaw Milosz Quotes

The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.

The revolt against one's environment is usually 'shame' of one's environment.

On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy

Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.

Irony is the glory of slaves.

Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?

Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.

You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.

I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.

Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.

Language is the only homeland.

Be young forever, seasons of the earth.

Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.

At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.

Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

What has no shadow has no strength to live.

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

The true enemy of man is generalization.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.

The soul exceeds its circumstances.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.