Wisława Szymborska: Trending quotes

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Wisława Szymborska: 184 quotes6 likes

“My siblings died the day I left for dry land
and only one small bone recalls that anniversary in me.”

Wisława Szymborska

"A Speech at the Lost-and-Found"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Could Have (1972)

“I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.""I don't have a door," says the stone.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Conversation with a Stone"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Salt (1962)

“Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.”

Wisława Szymborska

The Poet and the World (1996)

“God was finally going to believe
in a man both good and strong,
but good and strong
are still two different men.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Our Century's Decline"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The People on the Bridge (1986)

“They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.
They don't have to be seen while sailing on.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Clouds"
Poems New and Collected (1998), New Poems 1993 - 97

“And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe?
That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy!”

Wisława Szymborska

"Hitler's First Photograph"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The People on the Bridge (1986)

“My dreams — even they're not as populous as they should be.
They hold more solitude than noisy crowds.”

Wisława Szymborska

"A Large Number"
Poems New and Collected (1998), A Large Number (1976)

“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.”

Wisława Szymborska

"A Large Number"
Poems New and Collected (1998), A Large Number (1976)

“And only we few who remain unstripped of fur,
untorn from bone, unplucked of soaring feathers,
esteemed in all our quills, scales, tusks, and horns,
and in whatever else that ingenious protein
has seen fit to clothe us with,
we, my lord, are your dream,
which finds you innocent for now.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Tarsier"
Poems New and Collected (1998), No End of Fun (1967)

“My cry could only waken him. And what
a poor gift: I, confined to my own form,
when I used to be a birch, a lizard
shedding times and satin skins
in many shimmering hues.”

Wisława Szymborska

"I Am Too Close..."
Poems New and Collected (1998), Salt (1962)

“Here we are, naked lovers,
beautiful to each other—and that's enough.
The leaves of our eyelids our only covers,
we're lying amidst deep night.”

Wisława Szymborska

Openess
Poems New and Collected (1998), Calling Out to Yeti (1957)

“The world — whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don't know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world — it is astonishing.”

Wisława Szymborska

The Poet and the World (1996)