Czesław Miłosz Quotes

In 1942 in Warsaw, we were living without hope, or rather on a hope we knew to be a delusion.

I swear, there is in me no wizardry of word. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy

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 through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics. And yet the world is different from what it seems to be and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.

"1. That reason is a gift of God and that we should believe in its ability to comprehend the world.

2. That they have been wrong who undermined confidence in reason by enumerating the forces that want to usurp it: class struggle, libido, will to power.

3. That we should be aware that our being is enclosed within the circle of its perceptions, but not reduce reality to dreams and the phantoms of the mind.

4. That truth is a proof of freedom and that the sign of slavery is the lie.

5. That the proper attitude toward being is respect and that we must, therefore, avoid the company of people who debase being with their sarcasm, and praise nothingness.

6. That, even if we are accused of arrogance, it is the case that in the life of the mind a strict hierarchy is necessary.

7. That intellectuals in the twentieth century were afflicted with the habit of baratin, i.e., irresponsible jabber.

8. That in the hierarchy of human activities the arts stand higher than philosophy, and yet bad philosophy can spoil art.

9. That the objective truth exists; namely, out of two contrary assertions, one is true, one false, except in strictly defined cases when maintaining contradiction is legitimate.

10. That quite independently of the fate of religious denominations we should preserve a "philosophical faith," i.e., a belief in transcendence as a measure of humanity.

11. That time excludes and sentences to oblivion only those works of our hands and minds which prove worthless in raising up, century after century, the huge edifice of civilization.

12. That in our lives we should not succumb to despair because of our errors and our sins, for the past is never closed down and receives the meaning we give it by our subsequent acts."

Those dying here, the lonely Forgotten by the world, Our tongue becomes for them The language of an ancient planet. Until, when all is legend And many years have passed, On a great Campo di Fiori Rage will kindle at a poet's word.

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

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

The creative act of the artist lifts him above himself by demanding full surrender. No one puts words on paper or paint on canvas, doubting. If one doubts, one does so five minutes later...

We are an echo that runs, skittering, through a train of rooms. – Czeslaw Milosz, from “The Wormwood Star.” The Separate Notebooks. (Ecco September 21, 1986) Originally published 1984.

And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps Do not believe it is happening now.

Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.

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

He who invokes history is always secure. The dead will not rise to witness against him. You can accuse them of any deeds you like. Their reply will always be silence. Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark. You can fill them with any features desired. Proud of dominion over people long vanished, Change the past into your own, better likeness.

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