Czesław Miłosz quotes - page 4

Evil grows and bears fruit, which is understandable, because it has logic and probability on its side and also, of course, strength. The resistance of tiny kernels of good, to which no one grants the power of causing far-reaching consequences, is entirely mysterious, however. Such seeming nothingness not only lasts but contains within itself enormous energy which is revealed gradually. (Czesław Miłosz)
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. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
There was a time when only wise books were read helping us to bear our pain and misery. This, after all, is not quite the same as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics. And yet the world is different from what it seems to be and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
At the entrance, my bare feet on the dirt floor, Here, gusts of heat; at my back, white clouds. I stare and stare. It seems I was called for this: To glorify things just because they are. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
The feeling of a prisoner who touches a wall And knows that beyond it valleys spread, Oaks stand in summer splendor, a jay flies And a kingfisher changes a river to a marvel. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
A real "wasteland" is much more terrible than any imaginary one. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Leave To poets a moment of happiness, Otherwise your world will perish. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
He who invokes history is always secure. The dead will not rise to witness against him.You can accuse them of any deeds you like. Their reply will always be silence. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons But pure and generous words were forbidden. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
They are totally unaware of the fact that nothing is their own, that everything is part of their historical formation - their occupations, their clothes, their gestures and expressions, their beliefs and ideas. (Czesław Miłosz)
Never has there been a close study of how necessary to a man are the experiences which we clumsily call aesthetic. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Was I born to become a ritual mourner? View quote
Czesław Miłosz
And yet the world is different from what it seems to be and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
I am only a man: I need visible signs. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
I still think too much about the mothers And ask what is man born of woman. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
A purely physiological study of one particular passer-by in preference to another is meaningless. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
He doesn't know birds live In another time than man. He doesn't know a tree lives In another time than birds. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Vulgarized knowledge characteristically gives birth to a feeling that everything is understandable and explained. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Under various names, I have praised only you, rivers! (Czesław Miłosz)
They pushed their reasoning rather far. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
Someone will read as moral That the people of Rome or Warsaw Haggle, laugh, make love As they pass by martyrs' pyres. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
There was a time when only wise books were read helping us to bear our pain and misery. View quote
Czesław Miłosz
How it should be in Heaven I know, for I was there. By its river. Listening to its birds. View quote
Czesław Miłosz