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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.

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
Already
Word
Future
Syllable
Past
Pronounce
Firsts
Syllables
First
Belongs
Destroy
Silence

More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska

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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
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Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan
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Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.
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This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
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There's simply too much fuss about myself.
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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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I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself.
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I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
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History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, ... emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody's place in line.
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I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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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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Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
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Four billion people on this earth, but my imagination is still the same. It's bad with large numbers. It's still taken by particularity. It flits in the dark like a flashlight, illuminating only random faces while all the rest go blindly by, never coming to mind and never really missed. . . . I can't tell you how much I pass over in silence.
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I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
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They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
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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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