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Czesław Miłosz

79 quotes

• “Przysięgam, nie ma we mnie czarodziejstwa słów. Mówię do ciebie milcząc, jak obłok czy drzewo.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Dedication" (1945); quoted in Conversant Essays : Contemporary Poets on Poetry (1990) edited by James McCorkle, p. 69

• “I liked your velvet yoni, Annalena, long voyages in the delta of your legs. A striving upstream toward your beating heart through more and more savage currents saturated with the light of hops and bindweed. And our vehemence and triumphant laughter and our hasty dressing in the middle of the night to walk on the stone stairs of the upper city.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Annalena" (1967) in Selected Poems (1996); also in New and Collected Poems (2001)

• “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.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)

• “What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)

• “It would be more decorous not to live. To live is not decorous, Says he who after many years Returned to the city of his youth. There was no one left Of those who once walked these streets And now they had nothing, except his eyes. Stumbling, he walked and looked, instead of them, On the light they had loved, on the lilacs again in bloom.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: City of My Youth" (1984)

• “Masculinity and femininity, elapsed, met in him And every shame, every grief, every love. If ever we accede to enlightenment, He thought, it is in one compassionate moment When what separated them from me vanishes And a shower of drops from a bunch of lilacs Pours on my face, and hers, and his, at the same time.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: City of My Youth" (1984)

• “When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Meaning" (1991)

• “— And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other?”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Meaning" (1991)

• “— Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Meaning" (1991)

• “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 (1911–2004) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: If Only This Could Be Said" To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays by Czesŀaw Miŀosz (2001) edited and translated by Bogdana Carpenter and Madeline G. Levine

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

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps Do not believe it is happening now.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons But pure and generous words were forbidden Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one Considered himself as a lost man.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I've devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry, as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable duress and only with the hope that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They say somebody has invented you but to me this does not sound convincing for humans invented themselves as well.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I have heard that voice many a time when asleep and, what is strange, I understood more or less an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine And to know such pretending is disgraceful. But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed And started to prophesy. No one would hear me. Their screens and microphones are not for that.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hymn" (1935), trans. by Czesŀaw Miŀosz

• “Only when two times, two forms are drawn Together and their legibility Disturbed, do you see that immortality Is not very different from the present And is for its sake. You pick a fragment Of grenade which pierced the body of a song On Daphnis and Chloe.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Book in the Ruins" (1941), trans. Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass

• “— How is it, Chloe, that your pretty skirt Is torn so badly by the winds that hurt Real people, you who, in eternity, sing The hours, sun in your hair appearing And disappearing? How is that your breasts Are pierced by shrapnel, and the oak groves burn, While you, charmed, caring not at all, turn To run through forests of machinery and concrete And haunt us with the echoes of your feet?”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Book in the Ruins" (1941)

• “Someone will read as moral That the people of Rome or Warsaw Haggle, laugh, make love As they pass by martyrs' pyres. Someone else will read Of the passing of things human, Of the oblivion Born before the flames have died. But that day I thought only Of the loneliness of the dying, Of how, when Giordano Climbed to his burning There were no words In any human tongue To be left for mankind, Mankind who live on.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Those dying here, the lonely Forgotten by the world, Our tongue becomes for them The language of an ancient planet. Until, when all is legend And many years have passed, On a great Campo di Fiori Rage will kindle at a poet's word.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Campo dei Fiori" (1943), trans. Louis Iribarne and David Brooks

• “Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills — A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The World": Love (1943), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz

• “I will neither resurrect the past nor return. Sleep, Romeo, Juliet, on your headrest of stone feathers. I won't raise your bound hands from the ashes. Let the cat visit the deserted cathedrals, its pupil flashing on the altars. Let an owl nest on the dead ogive.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Farewell" (1945), trans. Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass

• “From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife, what grain will be saved?My son, believe me, nothing remains, Only adult toil, the furrow of fate in the palm. Only toil, Nothing more.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Farewell" (1945)

• “How can I live in this country Where the foot knocks against The unburied bones of kin? I hear voices, see smiles. I cannot Write anything; five hands Seize my pen and order me to write The story of their lives and deaths. Was I born to become a ritual mourner? I want to sing of festivities, The greenwood into which Shakespeare Often took me. Leave To poets a moment of happiness, Otherwise your world will perish.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In Warsaw" (1945), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz, Robert Hass and Madeline Levine

• “They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds. I put this book here for you, who once lived So that you should visit us no more.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Dedication" (1945), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz

• “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?”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Pill of Murti-Bing" (1951), trans. Jane Zielonko

• “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.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Undoubtedly, one comes closer to the truth when one sees history as the expression of the class struggle rather than a series of private quarrels among kings and nobles. But precisely because such an analysis of history comes closer to the truth, it is more dangerous. It gives the illusion of full knowledge; it supplies answers to all questions, answers which merely run around in a circle repeating a few formulas.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The pressure of an all-powerful totalitarian state creates an emotional tension in its citizens that determines their acts. When people are divided into "loyalists" and "criminals" a premium is placed on every type of conformist, coward, and hireling; whereas among the "criminals" one finds a singularly high percentage of people who are direct, sincere, and true to themselves.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The masses in highly industrialized countries like England, the United States, or France are largely de-Christianized. Technology, and the way of life it produces, undermines Christianity far more effectively than do violent measures.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 in the lie.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Child of Europe" (1946), trans. Jan Darowski

• “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.Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark. You can fill them with any features desired.Proud of dominion over people long vanished, Change the past into your own, better likeness.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Child of Europe" (1946)

• “He doesn't know birds live In another time than man. He doesn't know a tree lives In another time than birds And will grow slowly Upward in a gray column Thinking with its roots Of the silver of underworld kingdoms.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Birth" (1947), trans. Peter Dale Scott

• “Wherever he steps, there always Endures traced in sand A large-toed footprint Which clamors to be tried out By his childish foot arriving From the virgin forests.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Birth" (1947)

• “For a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Legend" (1949), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass

• “A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell of rotting apples And grow a fair amount of nettles.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Should, Should Not" (1961), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz

• “Long into the night we were walking on the Piazza del Duomo. He: That I was too politicized. And I answered him more or less as follows:If you have a nail in your shoe, what then? Do you love that nail? Same with me. I am for the moon amid the vineyards When you see high up the snow on the Alps.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In Milan" (1955), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass

• “We are a poor people, much afflicted. We camped under various stars, Where you dip water with a cup from a muddy river And slice your bread with a pocketknife. This is a place accepted, not chosen.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: It Was Winter" (1964), trans. Czesław Miłosz, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky and Renata Gorczynski

• “And here I am walking the eternal earth. Tiny, leaning on a stick. I pass a volcanic park, lie down at a spring, Not knowing how to express what is always and everywhere: The earth I cling to is so solid Under my breast and belly that I feel grateful For every pebble, and I don't know whether It is my pulse or the earth's that I hear, When the hems of invisible silk vestments pass over me, Hands, wherever they have been, touch my arm, Or small laughter, once, long ago over wine, With lanterns in the magnolias, for my house is huge.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: It Was Winter" (1964), trans. Czesław Miłosz, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky and Renata Gorczynski

• “Consciousness even in my sleep changes primary colors. The features of my face melt like a wax doll in the fire. And who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man?”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Rivers Grow Small" (1963), trans. Czesław Miłosz

• “I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this will not protect me. The word and the thought are over.”

  Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: They Will Place There Telescreens" (1964), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz

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