Quote

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

More quotes by Czeslaw Milosz

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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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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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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 true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
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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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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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What has no shadow has no strength to live.
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You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
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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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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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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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It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends
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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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We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.
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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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All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.
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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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The true enemy of man is generalization.
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