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They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.

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
Speech
Behinds
Behind
Wells
Firsts
Sentence
Well
Sentences
First
Anyway
Always
Hardest

More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska

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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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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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Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan
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It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself.
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No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
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I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
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Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
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No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
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Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous I don't know.
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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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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
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Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
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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.
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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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Animals don't even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. ... The conscious impulse to change one's appearance is found only among humans.
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What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
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They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
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I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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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.
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