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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.

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
Thinking
Settling
Achieved
Impulse
Finished
Allow
Enigmatic
Reality
Quests
Doe
Quest
Think
Settle

More quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

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The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
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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.
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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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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
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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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Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.
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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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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
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What is poetry which does not save nations or people?
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When I curse Fate, it's not me, but the earth in me.
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The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.
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A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him.
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If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
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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.
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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends
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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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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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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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