Quote #21

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep and, what is strange, I understood more or less an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

More from Ceslaw Milosz

  1. They say somebody has invented you but to me this does not sound convincing for humans invented themselves as well.
  2. All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside o…
  3. All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine And to know such pretending is disgraceful. But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screa…
  4. What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry, as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable duress and only with the …
  5. I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shore…
  6. The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,…
  7. Only when two times, two forms are drawn Together and their legibility Disturbed, do you see that immortality Is not very different from th…
  8. There was a time when only wise books were read helping us to bear our pain and misery. This, after all, is not quite the same as leafing t…

All Ceslaw Milosz quotes