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I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

Wislawa Szymborska

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Wislawa Szymborska
Age: 88 †
Born: 1923
Born: July 2
Died: 2012
Died: February 1
Critic
Essayist
Literary Critic
Mechanic
Poet
Translator
Writer
Kornik
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska
Szymborska
Think
Devised
Thinking
Pastime
Fashioned
Humankind
Glorious
Books
Reading
Book

More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska

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Today when two people decide upon a thoughtless and precipitate abbreviation of the physical space between them, they think, at least at that moment, that they're mutually attracted and drawn together by an overwhelming force.
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At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
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When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
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You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
Wislawa Szymborska
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What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
Wislawa Szymborska
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Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
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Whether you want it or not, your genes have a political past, your skin a political tone. your eyes a political color. ... you walk with political steps on political ground.
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I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
Wislawa Szymborska
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God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.
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Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Wislawa Szymborska
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I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still
Wislawa Szymborska
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When I mention somebody, that doesn't necessarily mean that I identify with him, personally or poetically. I'm extremely happy when I encounter poets who are different than I am. The ones who have their own distinct poetics provide me with the greatest experiences.
Wislawa Szymborska
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In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
Wislawa Szymborska
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In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.
Wislawa Szymborska