Czesław Miłosz citations (106 citations, Page 4)

Czesław Miłosz: 106 citations0 J'aime

Czesław Miłosz: Citations en anglais

“A man should not love the moon.
An ax should not lose weight in his hand.
His garden should smell of rotting apples
And grow a fair amount of nettles.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Should, Should Not" (1961), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz
King Popeil and Other Poems (1962)

“If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Study of Loneliness" (1975), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

“I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
:day draws near
another one
do what you can.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"On Angels"

“We go down with the bells ringing in all the sunken cities.
Forgotten, we are greeted by the embassies of the dead,
While your endless flowing carries us on and on;
And neither is nor was. The moment only, eternal.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Rivers" (1980), trans. Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

“On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"A Song On the End of the World" http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19195

“All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine
And to know such pretending is disgraceful.
But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed
And started to prophesy. No one would hear me.
Their screens and microphones are not for that.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Not Mine"

“Our memory is childish and it saves only what we need.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Yellow Bicycle," trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
Unattainable Earth (1986)

“During the thirty years I have spent abroad I have felt I was more privileged than my Western colleagues, whether writers or teachers of literature, for events both recent and long past took in my mind a sharply delineated, precise form. Western audiences confronted with poems or novels written in Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary, or with films produced there, possibly intuit a similarly sharpened consciousness, in a constant struggle against limitations imposed by censorship. Memory thus is our force, it protects us against a speech entwining upon itself like the ivy when it does not find a support on a tree or a wall.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)

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

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Child of Europe" (1946), trans. Jan Darowski
Daylight (1953)

“From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife,
what grain will be saved?My son, believe me, nothing remains,
Only adult toil,
the furrow of fate in the palm.
Only toil,
Nothing more.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Farewell" (1945)
Rescue (1945)

“A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Before Majesty" (1978), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

“Greece had to lose, her pure consciousness
had to make our agony only more acute.We needed God loving us in our weakness
and not in the glory of beatitude.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"To Raja Rao" (1969) (A poem written in English)
Uncollected Poems (1954-1969)

“It isn't pleasant to surrender to the hegemony of a nation which is still wild and primitive, and to concede the absolute superiority of its customs and institutions, science and technology, literature and art. Must one sacrifice so much in the name of the unity of mankind?”

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Czeslaw Milosz livre The Captive Mind

"The Pill of Murti-Bing" (1951), trans. Jane Zielonko
The Captive Mind (1953)

“They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Dedication" (1945), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz
Rescue (1945)

“When I curse Fate, it's not me, but the earth in me.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"Notes" (1978), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

“The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation
That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets,
And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.”

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Czeslaw Milosz

"The Fall" (1975), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Lillian Vallee
Hymn of the Pearl (1981)

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