“You are a tongue of the debased,
of the unreasonable, hating themselves
even more than they hate other nations,
a tongue of informers,
a tongue of the confused,
ill with their own innocence.But without you, who am I?
Only a scholar in a distant country,
a success, without fears and humiliations.
Yes, who am I without you?
Just a philosopher, like everyone else.”

"My Faithful Mother Tongue" (1968), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Pinsky
City Without a Name (1969)

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

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Czeslaw Milosz 106
Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004

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