Quote

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

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
Fact
Arrive
Facts
Twice
Happens
Consequence
Ever
Sorry
Without
Leave
Nothing
Happen
Practice
Improvised
Chance
Workout

More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska

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We're extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.
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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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My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.
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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
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Memory at last has what I sought.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous I don't know.
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They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.
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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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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
Wislawa Szymborska
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I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.
Wislawa Szymborska
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
Wislawa Szymborska
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I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Wislawa Szymborska
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But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.
Wislawa Szymborska
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Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
Wislawa Szymborska
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This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
Wislawa Szymborska
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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