Octavio Paz Quotes

Quotes about:

• A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.

  Octavio Paz

  Flower, Heart, Love Is

  91 Copy quote

• The Mexican...is familiar with death. [He] jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.

  Octavio Paz

  Sleep, Mexican, Toys

  136 Copy quote

• Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.

  Octavio Paz

  Waiting, Arrivals

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger (1991). “The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987”, p.171, New Directions Publishing

  116 Copy quote

• What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life

  Octavio Paz

  Views, Civilization, Differences

  129 Copy quote

• Love is not a desire for beauty; it is a yearning for completion.

  Octavio Paz

  Love Is, Desire, Yearning

  Octavio Paz (1995). “The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism”, Harcourt

  82 Copy quote

• Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

  Octavio Paz

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Men

  The Labyrinth of Solitude ch. 9 (1950) (translation by Lysander Kemp)

  96 Copy quote

• Deserve your dream.

  Octavio Paz

  Dream, Your Dreams, Deserve

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger, G. Aroul (1984). “Selected Poems”, p.21, New Directions Publishing

  82 Copy quote

• A civilization that denies death ends by denying life.

  Octavio Paz

  Death, Civilization, Deny

  Octavio Paz (1985). “The Labyrinth of Solitude: And the Other Mexico ; Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude ; Mexico and the United States ; The Philanthropic Ogre”, p.60, Grove Press

  74 Copy quote

• The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.

  Octavio Paz

  Purpose, Wonder, Possibility

  20 Copy quote

• The supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, 'Not Yet,' and thus denies us... Whoever builds a house for future happiness builds a prison for the present.

  Octavio Paz

  House, Future Happiness, Prison

  Octavio Paz (1985). “The Labyrinth of Solitude: And the Other Mexico ; Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude ; Mexico and the United States ; The Philanthropic Ogre”, p.283, Grove Press

  87 Copy quote

• Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don't move; today is today, always is today.

  Octavio Paz

  Moving, Reality, History

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger, G. Aroul (1984). “Selected Poems”, p.26, New Directions Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• Light is time thinking about itself.

  Octavio Paz

  Thinking, Light

  41 Copy quote

• To love is to battle, to open doors, to cease to be a ghost with a number forever in chains, forever condemned by a faceless master; the world changes if two look at each other and see.

  Octavio Paz

  Love, Doors, Two

  "Piedra de Sol".

  87 Copy quote

• Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.

  Octavio Paz

  Truth, Believe, Thinking

  19 Copy quote

• No one behind, no one ahead. The path the ancients cleared has closed. And the other path, everyone's path, easy and wide, goes nowhere. I am alone and find my way.

  Octavio Paz

  Way, Path, Easy

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger (1998). “In Light of India”, p.161, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.

  Octavio Paz

  Eye, Poetry, Ears

  Octavio Paz (1973). “Alternating Current”, p.66, Arcade Publishing

  60 Copy quote

• To love is to undress our names.

  Octavio Paz

  Love Is, Names

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger (1991). “The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

  62 Copy quote

• For every language that becomes extinct, an image of man disappears.

  Octavio Paz

  Men, Language, Disappear

  11 Copy quote

• There is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science, without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.

  Octavio Paz

  Art, Thinking, Healthy

  15 Copy quote

• Every moment is nothing without end.

  Octavio Paz

  Moments, Ends

  Octavio Paz (1971). “Configurations”, p.29, New Directions Publishing

  70 Copy quote

• Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.

  Octavio Paz

  Love, Success, Mutual Help

  36 Copy quote

• By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death

  Octavio Paz

  Civilization, Differences, Progress

  45 Copy quote

• Beyond happiness or unhappiness, though it is both things, love is intensity; it does not give us eternity but life, that second in which the doors of time and space open just a crack: here is there and now is always.

  Octavio Paz

  Love Is, Doors, Space

  Octavio Paz (1995). “The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism”, Harcourt

  27 Copy quote

• Love is born at first sight; the friendship of a frequent and lengthy exchange.

  Octavio Paz

  Love Is, Sight, Firsts

  26 Copy quote

• Because two bodies, naked and entwined, leap over time, they are invulnerable, nothing can touch them, they return to the source. There is no you, no I, no tomorrow, no yesterday, no names, the truth of two in a single body, a single soul, oh total being.

  Octavio Paz

  Names, Two, Yesterday

  Octavio Paz, Eliot Weinberger (1991). “The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

  26 Copy quote

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