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Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.

Octavio Paz

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Octavio Paz
Age: 84 †
Born: 1914
Born: March 31
Died: 1998
Died: April 2
Diplomat
Essayist
Lyricist
Philosopher
Poet
Politician
Translator
Writer
Mexico City
Mexico
Octavio Paz Lozano
Meanings
Grammar
Begins
Critics
Criticism
Social
Establishing

More quotes by Octavio Paz

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Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. And the supernatural is the supreme otherness. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
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What is art? A violet. Is that all? An artistic style is a living entity, a continuous process of invention. It can never be imposed from without born of the profoundest tendencies within a society, its direction is to a certain extent unpredictable, in much the same way as the eventual configuration of a tree's branches.
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Poet: gardener of epitaphs.
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There is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science, without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.
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Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.
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Enormous and solid but swaying, beaten by the wind but chained, murmur of a million leaves against my window. Riot of trees, surge of dark green sounds. The grove, suddenly still, is a web of fronds and branches.
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Solitude is the profoundest fact
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Loving means getting rid of names.
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Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don't move today is today, always is today.
Octavio Paz
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When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings
Octavio Paz
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Deserve your dream.
Octavio Paz
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Art is what remains of religion: the dance above the yawning abyss.
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What characterizes a poem is its necessary dependence on words as much as its struggle to transcend them.
Octavio Paz
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I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers.
Octavio Paz
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A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.
Octavio Paz
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Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.
Octavio Paz
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To fight evil is to fight ourselves.
Octavio Paz
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Light is time thinking about itself.
Octavio Paz
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Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.
Octavio Paz
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Changes are inseparable from democracy. To defend democracy is to defend the possibility of change in turn, changes alone can strengthen democracy.
Octavio Paz