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Wisława Szymborska

70 quotes

“There's no life that couldn't be immortal if only for a moment.Death always arrives by that very moment too late.In vain it tugs at the knob of the invisible door. As far as you've come can't be undone.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He managed to come into the world at what was still a fitting time. All that was to pass passed in this house. Not in housing projects, not in furnished but empty quarters, among unknown neighbors on fifteenth floors that student field trips rarely reach.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few of them made it to thirty. Old age was the privilege of rocks and trees. Childhood ended as fast as wolf cubs grow. One had to hurry, to get on with life before the sun went down, before the first snow.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe? That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy!”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's nothing more debauched than thinking.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's shocking, the positions, the unchecked simplicity with which one mind contrives to fertilize another! Such positions the Kama Sutra itself doesn't know.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After every war someone has to tidy up. Things won't pick themselves up, after all.Someone has to shove the rubble to the roadsides so the carts loaded with corpses can get by.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who knew what this was all about must make way for those who know little. And less than that. And at last nothing less than nothing.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I shake my memory. Maybe something in its branches that has been asleep for years will start up with a flutter.No. Clearly I'm asking too much. Nothing less than one whole second.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: May 16, 1973
“If there are angels they must, I hope, find this convincing, this merriment dangling from terror, not even crying Save me Save me since all of this takes place in silence.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan. I'm drowning in debts up to my ears. I'll have to pay for myself with my self, give up my life for my life.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the sake of research, the big picture and definitive conclusions, one would have to transcend time, in which everything scurries and whirls.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The counting of weekdays would inevitably seem to be a senseless activity; dropping letters in the mailbox a whim of foolish youth; the sign "No Walking On The Grass" a symptom of lunacy.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds — a split second's enough for them to start being something else. Their trademark: they don't repeat a single shape, shade, pose, arrangement.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone. They don't have to be seen while sailing on.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world — whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don't know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world — it is astonishing.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source