“Our humans
don't know how to talk to one another.”

— Wisława Szymborska

"An Unexpected Meeting"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Salt (1962)
Context: Our snakes have shed their lightning,
our apes their flights of fancy,
our peacocks have renounced their plumes.
The bats flew out of our hair long ago. We fall silent in mid-sentence,
all smiles, past help.
Our humans
don't know how to talk to one another.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Our humans don't know how to talk to one another." by Wisława Szymborska?

Wisława Szymborska92

Polish writer 1923–2012

Related quotes

“Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

“It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion

“But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

“Paul asks how I would have handled a love letter from a student. I don't know — by talking, maybe, by listening. I don't know.
How sad that we don't hear each other — any of us.
Major issues are submerged by minor ones; catastrophes by absurdities.”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part VIII, ch. 39 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

“I don't know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html <br class="br">1960s <br class="br">Context: I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn't enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate … but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views — at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don't want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don't know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.

“I do not know how I stand this parting from Molly, save that by a paradox we are so absoultely one that in the sense we never part, but talk to one another and watch one another and commune night and day, and grip fast the same ideals. The North Star is our only meeting place, in this manner. We both look at it every night.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

A 1915 letter written to his aunt in regards to his wife Molly Childers. Cited in " Erskine Childers " by Jim Ring, Faber and Faber, London , (1996), pg. 432.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

“I know it's not good to be weak and helpless. But I don't think it's good to be too strong either. In our society, they talk about survival of the fittest. But we're not animals. We're human.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist