Czeslaw Milosz Quotes - Page 2

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• Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Lying, Reality, Tree

  "Child of Europe" sec. 4 (1946) (translation by Jan Darowski)

  66 Copy quote

• A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Gratitude, Appreciation, Cheer

  19 Copy quote

• Vulgarized knowledge characteristically gives birth to a feeling that everything is understandable and explained. It is like a system of bridges built over chasms. One can travel boldly ahead over these bridges, ignoring the chasms. It is forbidden to look down into them; but that, alas, does not alter the fact that they exist.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Bridges, Giving, Feelings

  "The Captive Mind" by Czeslaw Milosz, as translated by Jane Zielonko, 1990.

  11 Copy quote

• All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Stars, Believe, Taken

  Czeslaw Milosz, “On Angels”

  4 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Talking, People, Impossible

  "The Captive Mind" by Czeslaw Milosz, as translated by Jane Zielonko, 1990.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Falling In Love, Fall, Love Is

  4 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Deeds, Calm, Sin

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.186, Penguin UK

  36 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Circles, World, Bees

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.54, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Art, Echoes, Poetry

  12 Copy quote

• Irony is the glory of slaves.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Irony, Slave, Glory

  6 Copy quote

• 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?

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Heart, Night, Listening

  9 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Real, Passionate, Pursuit

  Czeslaw Milosz (1983). “The Witness of Poetry”, p.56, Harvard University Press

  5 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Tree, Grain, Weary Traveler

  "Child of Europe" sec. 4 (1946) (translation by Jan Darowski)

  11 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  What Matters, Trying, Matter

  6 Copy quote

• It isn't pleasant to surrender to the hegemony of a nation which is still wild and primitive, and to concede the absolute superiority of its customs and institutions, science and technology, literature and art. Must one sacrifice so much in the name of the unity of mankind?

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Art, Sacrifice, Technology

  "The Captive Mind" by Czeslaw Milosz, as translated by Jane Zielonko, 1990.

  9 Copy quote

• Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting. Sometimes you hear a distant refrain. What does it mean, you ask, who is singing? A childlike sun grows warm. A grandson and a great-grandson are born. You are led by the hand once again. The names of the rivers remain with you. How endless those rivers seem! Your fields lie fallow, The city towers are not as they were. You stand at the threshold mute.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Running, Spring, Lying

  Czeslaw Milosz, “Forget”

  11 Copy quote

• It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants
  of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the
  realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and
  abstruse books of philosophy.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Country, Philosophy, Book

  9 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Environment, Shame, Revolt

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Fall, Army, Men

  22 Copy quote

• I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Reflection, Rivers, Clouds

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.77, Penguin UK

  9 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  People, Belief, Solace

  20 Copy quote

• What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Sea, People, Doe

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.66, Penguin UK

  11 Copy quote

• Every poet depends upon generations who wrote in his native tongue; he inherits styles and forms elaborated by those who lived before him. At the same time, though, he feels that those old means of expression are not adequate to his own experience.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Mean, Expression, Style

  Czeslaw Milosz's Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 8, 1980.

  8 Copy quote

• Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Poetry Is, Knows, Dividends

  5 Copy quote

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

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Sweet, Thinking, Ends

  5 Copy quote

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