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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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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
Better
Contradictions
Composed
Contradiction
Poetry
Philosophy
Form

More quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
Czeslaw Milosz
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends
Czeslaw Milosz
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The revolt against one's environment is usually 'shame' of one's environment.
Czeslaw Milosz
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Language is the only homeland.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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
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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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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
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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Czeslaw Milosz
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz
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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
Czeslaw Milosz
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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.
Czeslaw Milosz