Czeslaw Milosz Quotes

Quotes about:

• In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Truth, Integrity, People

  Czeslaw Milosz's Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 8, 1980.

  72 Copy quote

• The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Remembrance, Stories, Speak

  50 Copy quote

• Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Atheist, Pain, Betrayal

  41 Copy quote

• The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Change, Passion, Voice

  Czeslaw Milosz, “Child Of Europe”

  42 Copy quote

• 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, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Keys, Doors, House

  Czeslaw Milosz, “Ars Poetica?”

  40 Copy quote

• The soul exceeds its circumstances.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Soul, Circumstances, Exceed

  40 Copy quote

• The true enemy of man is generalization.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Men, Enemy, Generalization

  33 Copy quote

• Evil grows and bears fruit, which is understandable, because it has logic and probability on its side and also, of course, strength. The resistance of tiny kernels of good, to which no one grants the power of causing far-reaching consequences, is entirely mysterious, however. Such seeming nothingness not only lasts but contains within itself enormous energy which is revealed gradually.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Evil, Energy, Lasts

  "To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays (If Only This Could Be Said)". Book edited and translated by Bogdana Carpenter and Madeline G. Levine, 2001.

  25 Copy quote

• What has no shadow has no strength to live.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Shadow

  Czeslaw Milosz, “Faith”

  24 Copy quote

• Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Men, Illusion, Clutch

  26 Copy quote

• Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Inspirational, Life, Hurt

  36 Copy quote

• I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don't know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Memories, Thinking, Earth

  "Consciousness" by Czeslaw Milosz, 1986.

  9 Copy quote

• A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Betrayal, Thinking, People

  30 Copy quote

• All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Ends, Rely, Highest

  6 Copy quote

• The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Stupidity, Volume

  Czeslaw Milosz, “Account”

  36 Copy quote

• At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new
  day of a most precious delusion.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Night, New Day, Doubt

  23 Copy quote

• Language is the only homeland.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Language, Homeland

  30 Copy quote

• Be young forever, seasons of the earth.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Forever, Earth, Young

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.230, Penguin UK

  28 Copy quote

• The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Wise, Children, Men

  "In gratitude for all the gifts" by Seamus Heaney, www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2004.

  8 Copy quote

• Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Lying, Reality, Tree

  "Child of Europe" sec. 4 (1946) (translation by Jan Darowski)

  66 Copy quote

• The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Purpose, Difficult, Poetry Is

  Czeslaw Milosz (2017). “Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004”, p.127, Penguin UK

  29 Copy quote

• Love means to look at yourself
  The way one looks at distant things
  For you are only one thing among many.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Mean, Looks, Way

  "Rescue". Book by Czeslaw Milosz, 1945.

  8 Copy quote

• Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
  You can kill one, but another is born.
  The words are written down, the deed, the date.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Remember You, Remembers You, Deeds

  Czeslaw Milosz, “You Who Wronged”

  34 Copy quote

• When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Born, Finished

  33 Copy quote

• Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Falling In Love, Fall, Love Is

  4 Copy quote

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