Quote #59

You are a tongue of the debased, of the unreasonable, hating themselves even more than they hate other nations, a tongue of informers, a tongue of the confused, ill with their own innocence. But without you, who am I? Only a scholar in a distant country, a success, without fears and humiliations. Yes, who am I without you? Just a philosopher, like everyone else.

More from Ceslaw Milosz

  1. I am only a man: I need visible signs. I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction. Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the…
  2. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because …
  3. And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned, My face covered with a coat though now no one was left Of those who could…
  4. Greece had to lose, her pure consciousness had to make our agony only more acute. We needed God loving us in our weakness and not in the gl…
  5. I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this…
  6. Leaves glowing in the sun, zealous hum of bumblebees, From afar, from somewhere beyond the river, echoes of lingering voices And the unhurr…
  7. Who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man?
  8. Tell me, as you would in the middle of the night When we face only night, the ticking of a watch, the whistle of an express train, tell me …

All Ceslaw Milosz quotes