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Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.

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
Conditions
Alone
Searching
Lying
Lowest
Human
Condition
Humans
Solitude
Feels
Depth
Men
Adventure
Lies

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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.
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Loving means getting rid of names.
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Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.
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Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.
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It is the Revolution, the magical word, the word that is going to change everything, that is going to bring us immense delight and a quick death.
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A civilization that denies death ends by denying life.
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Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game.
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Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.
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The woman who died night after night and her dying was a long goodbye, a train that never left.
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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
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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.
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What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.
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The world is born when two people kiss
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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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I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?
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Contemporary man has rationalized the myths, but he has not been able to destroy them.
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Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone.
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Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
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Deserve your dream.
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A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.
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