The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are… - Wisława Szymborska

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The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.

The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.

The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.

There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.

Wisława Szymborska

self-deprecation morality humanity life experience

English

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About Wisława Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska-Włodek (2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist and translator. She was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was bestowed the title of Lady of the Order of the White Eagle in 2011. She was a member of the Polish Writers Association (1989) and the Polish Academy of Skills (1995).

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska • Szymborska • Wislawa Szymborska

All quotes from Wisława Szymborska Similar Quotes by other Originators

Originators like Wisława Szymborska:

T. S. Eliot Samuel Beckett Czesław Miłosz Margaret Atwood Jim Harrison

Additional quotes by Wisława Szymborska

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.

I remember it so clearly — how people, seeing me, would break off in midword. Laughter died. Lovers' hands unclasped. Children ran to their mothers. I didn't even know their short-lived names. And that song about a little green leaf — no one ever finished it near me.

I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers, a tiny creature, made up of two pupils and whatever simply could not be left out...

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are alien to the black panther. Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions. The rat… - Wisława Szymborska

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