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

Czeslaw Milosz

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Czeslaw Milosz
Age: 93 †
Born: 1911
Born: June 30
Died: 2004
Died: August 14
Diplomat
Essayist
Pedagogue
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Clarksburg
West Virginia
Miłosz
Czelaw Milosz
Highest
Wisdom
Ends
Yearn
Rely

More quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

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At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.
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When I curse Fate, it's not me, but the earth in me.
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I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don't know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.
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The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.
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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.
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The revolt against one's environment is usually 'shame' of one's environment.
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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.
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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.
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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
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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.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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?
Czeslaw Milosz
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I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy
Czeslaw Milosz
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A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
Czeslaw Milosz
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On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Czeslaw Milosz