“The real world is much smaller than the imaginary”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“A real "wasteland" is much more terrible than any imaginary one.”
— Czeslaw Milosz, book The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind (1953)
Context: Whoever saw, as many did, a whole city reduced to rubble — kilometers of streets on which there remained no trace of life, not even a cat, not even a homeless dog — emerged with a rather ironic attitude toward descriptions of the hell of the big city by contemporary poets, descriptions of the hell in their own souls. A real "wasteland" is much more terrible than any imaginary one. Whoever has not dwelt in the midst of horror and dread cannot know how strongly a witness and participant protests against himself, against his own neglect and egoism. Destruction and suffering are the school of social thought.
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Czeslaw Milosz106
Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004Related quotes
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