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A civilization that denies death ends by denying life.

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
Civilization
Death
Ends
Life
Denies
Denying
Deny

More quotes by 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.
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To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes to hear it is to see it with our ears.
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Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.
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The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature.
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Contemporary man has rationalized the myths, but he has not been able to destroy them.
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Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings.
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Light is time thinking about itself.
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Love is the revelation of the other person's freedom.
Octavio Paz
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Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.
Octavio Paz
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Man does not speak because he thinks he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.
Octavio Paz
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Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone.
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Whatever is not stone is light
Octavio Paz
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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.
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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There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot.
Octavio Paz
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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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The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.
Octavio Paz
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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.
Octavio Paz