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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

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
Illusions
Illusion
Hold
Else
Nothing
Men
Clutch

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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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The revolt against one's environment is usually 'shame' of one's environment.
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Language is the only homeland.
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Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It puts what should be above things as they are. It does not know Jew from Greek nor slave from master.
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
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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.
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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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.
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When I curse Fate, it's not me, but the earth in me.
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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.
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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.
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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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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?
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