Wisława Szymborska Quotes

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

The price, after all, for not having died already
goes up not in leaps but step by step, and he would
pay that price, too.

No carece de encantos un mundo tan terrible, no carece de madrugadas que merecen un despertar.

Read good poetry and read it well, tracing the countless incarnations of every word. These are after all the same words lying dead in dictionaries or leading a gray life in speech. Then why do they shine like new in poems, as if the poet had just discovered them?

Psalm

How leaky are the borders of man-made states!
How many clouds float over them scot-free,
how much desert sand sifts from country to country,
how many mountain pebbles roll onto foreign turf
in provocative leaps!

Need I cite each and every bird as it flies,
or alights, as now, on the lowered gate?
Even if be a sparrow — its tail is abroad,
Though its beak is still home. As if that weren’t enough — it keeps fidgeting!

Out of countless insects I will single out the ant,
who, between the guard’s left and right boots,
feels unobliged to answer questions of origin and destination.

If only this whole mess could be seen at once in detail
on every continent!
Isn’t that a privet on the opposite bank
smuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?
Who else but the squid, brazenly long-armed,
would violate the sacred territorial waters.?

How can we speak of any semblance of order
when we can’t rearrange the stars
to know which one shines for whom?

Not to mention the reprehensible spreading of fog!
Or the dusting of the steppe over its entire range
as though it weren’t split in two!
Or voices carried over accommodating air waves:
summoning squeals and suggestive gurgles!

Only what’s human can be truly alien.
The rest is mixed forest, undermining moles, and wind.

The Real World'

The real word doesn't take flight
the way dreams do.
No muffled voice, no doorbell
can dispel it,
no shriek, no crash
can cut it short.

Images in dreams
are hazy and ambiguous,
and can generally be explained
in many different ways.
Reality means reality:
that's tougher nut to crack.

Dreams have keys.
The real world opens on its own
and can't be shut.
Report canrds and stars
pour from it,
butterflies and flatiron warmers
shower down,
headless caps
and shards of clouds.
Together they form a rebus
that can't be solved.

Without us dreams couldn't exist.
The one on whom the real world depends
is still unknown,
and the products of his insomnia
are avaialble to anyone
who wakes up.

Dreams aren't crazy-
it's the real world that's insane,
if only in the stubbornness
with which it sticks
to the current of events.

In dreams our recently deceased
are still alive,
in perfect health, no less,
and restored to the full bloom of youth.
The real world lays the corpse
in front of us.
The real world doesn't blink an eye.

Dreams are featherweights,
and memory can shake them off with ease.
The real world doesn't have to fear forgetfulness.
It's a tough customer.
It sits on our shoulders,
weights on our hearts,
tumbles to our feet.

There's no escaping it,
it tags along each time we flee.
And there's no stop
along our escape route
where reality isn't expecting us.

Eve from the rib, Venus from foam,
Minerva from Jupiter’s head –
All three were more real than me.

When he isn’t looking at me,
I try to catch my reflection
on the wall. And I see the nail
where a picture used to be.

So poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvres.” I

So poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvres.

When they said he didn’t exist, he couldn’t die of grief, so he had to be born. He’s already out there living somewhere; he blinks his little eyes and grows.

Funny little thing. How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it. I’d

Our times are still not safe and sane enough
for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Ista nas zvezda u istom radijusu drži.
Na osnovu istih zakona bacamo senke.
Pokušavamo nešto da saznamo, svako na svoj način,
a i ono što ne znamo zajedničko nam je.

Kako znam i umem, objasniću, samo pitajte:
šta je to gledati očima,
zašto mi srce kuca
i zbog čega moje telo nije pustilo korenje.

Ali kako odgovarati na nepostavljena pitanja,
ako si uz to neko
za vas veoma ništavan.

Estar en casa es tremendamente peligroso. A cada paso que damos hay peligro de muerte o mutilación. Incluso me atrevería a decir que cuantas más comodidades civilizadoras guardamos en casa, mayores son las posibilidades de que nos suceda una catástrofe. Vivir en una caverna era más seguro que todo eso, claro, siempre y cuando no irrumpiera en ella un tigre dientes de sable en ausencia de la gente que se encargaba de cazar.

Out of a hundred people:
Those who always know better- 52
Doubting every step- all the rest
Glad to lend a hand if it doesn’t take too long- as high as 49
Always good, because they can’t be otherwise- 4 maybe 5
Able to admire without envy- 18
Living in constant fear of something or someone- 77
Capable of happiness- 20 something tops
Harmless singly, savage in crowds- half at least
Wise after the fact- just a couple more than wise before it
Taking only things from life- 30 (I wish I were wrong)
Righteous- 35, which is a lot
Righteous and understanding- 3
Worthy of compassion- 99
Mortal- 100 out of 100 (Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.)

A Contribution to Statistics