Czesław Miłosz

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.― Czesław Miłosz 

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

― Czesław Miłosz 

 

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

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

 ― Czesław Miłosz 

 

“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“Learning

To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“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

“Language is the only homeland.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.”
― Czesław Miłosz, The Issa Valley

“Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.”
― Czeslaw Milosz, Selected Poems Selected Poems

“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

“You see how I try
To reach with words
What matters most
And how I fail.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness
And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.”
― Czesław Miłosz, The Separate Notebooks

“Consolation

Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.”
― Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

“Tomber amoureux. To fall in love. Does it occur suddenly or gradually? If gradually, when is the moment “already”? I would fall in love with a monkey made of rags. With a plywood squirrel. With a botanical atlas. With an oriole. With a ferret. With a marten in a picture. With the forest one sees to the right when riding in a cart to Jaszuny. With a poem by a little-known poet. With human beings whose names still move me. And always the object of love was enveloped in erotic fantasy or was submitted, as in Stendhal, to a “cristallisation,” so it is frightful to think of that object as it was, naked among the naked things, and of the fairy tales about it one invents. Yes, I was often in love with something or someone. Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love. That is something different.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“What has no shadow has no strength to live.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“I was not meant to live anywhere except in Paradise.
Such, simply, was my genetic inadaptation.
Here on earth every prick of a rose-thorn changed into a wound. When the sun hid behind a cloud, I grieved.
I pretended to work like others from morning to evening, but I was absent, dedicated to invisible countries.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“Forget the suffering
You caused others.
Forget the suffering
Others caused you.
The waters run and run,
Springs sparkle and are done,
You walk the earth you are forgetting.

Sometimes you hear a distant refrain.
What does it mean, you ask, who is singing?
A childlike sun grows warm.
A grandson and a great-grandson are born.
You are led by the hand once again.

The names of the rivers remain with you.
How endless those rivers seem!
Your fields lie fallow,
The city towers are not as they were.
You stand at the threshold mute.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“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.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person...”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“The true enemy of man is generalization.”
― Czesław Miłosz, Testimony to the Invisible: Essays on Swedenborg

“Irony is the glory of slaves.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“No duties. I don’t have to be profound.
I don’t have to be artistically perfect.
Or sublime. Or edifying.
I just wander. I say: ‘You were running,
That’s fine. It was the thing to do.’
And now the music of the worlds transforms me.
My planet enters a different house.
Trees and lawns become more distinct.
Philosophies one after another go out.
Everything is lighter yet not less odd.
Sauces, wine vintages, dishes of meat.
We talk a little of district fairs,
Of travels in a covered wagon with a cloud of dust behind,
Of how rivers once were, what the scent of calamus is.
That’s better than examining one’s private dreams.
And meanwhile it has arrived. It’s here, invisible.
Who can guess how it got here, everywhere.
Let others take care of it. Time for me to play hooky.
Buena notte. Ciao. Farewell.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.”
― Czesław Miłosz

“It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends”

“I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.”
― Czeslaw Milosz