Wisława Szymborska: Quotes about the world

Wisława Szymborska was Polish writer. Explore interesting quotes on world.

Wisława Szymborska: 184 quotes6 likes

“I'm working on the world,
revised, improved edition”

I'm Working on the World"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Calling Out to Yeti (1957)
Context: I'm working on the world,
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.

“Somewhere out there the world must have an end.”

Wisława Szymborska

“True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?”

Wisława Szymborska

Source: View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems

“We're extremely fortunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.
One would have
to live a long, long time,
unquestionably longer
than the world itself.”

Wisława Szymborska

"We're Extremely Fortunate"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The End and the Beginning (1993)

“He managed to come into the world at what was still a fitting time.
All that was to pass passed in this house.
Not in housing projects,
not in furnished but empty quarters,
among unknown neighbors
on fifteenth floors
that student field trips rarely reach.”

Wisława Szymborska

"The Great Man's House"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The People on the Bridge (1986)

“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)