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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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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
Things
Reflection
Sponge
Rivers
Sponges
Behinds
Reflections
Behind
Immensity
Tree
Existing
Suffering
River
Left
Trees
Cannot
Clouds
Saturate

More quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

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I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy
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The partition separating life from death is so tenuous. The unbelievable fragility of our organism suggests a vision on a screen: a kind of mist condenses itself into a human shape, lasts a moment and scatters.
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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.
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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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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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The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.
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The soul exceeds its circumstances.
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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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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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A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.
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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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Be young forever, seasons of the earth.
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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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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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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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Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.
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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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In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
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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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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.
Czeslaw Milosz