“We are a poor people, much afflicted.
We camped under various stars,
Where you dip water with a cup from a muddy river
And slice your bread with a pocketknife.
This is a place accepted, not chosen.”
"It Was Winter" (1964), trans. Czesław Miłosz, Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky and Renata Gorczynski
Bobo's Metamorphosis (1965)
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Czeslaw Milosz 106
Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004Related quotes
“We must powder our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.”
I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!
Jane to Mr. Rochester (Ch. 23)
Jane Eyre (1847)
Cf. Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7: La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. (The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.)
Source: Farthing (2006), Chapter 18
“It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.”
As quoted in Homelessness in America : A Forced March to Nowhere (1982), p. 121
Context: You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.
“Religion is much used by the usurper to keep God’s chosen people under his oppression.”
Life-Study of Luke, Chapter 31, Section 2, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 0-7363-1202-1
“We were the "chosen people," chosen to be killed?”
On traditional Jewish faith, as quoted in "Concerns Beyond Just Where the Wild Things Are" by Patricia Cohen in The New York Times (9 September 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/arts/design/10sendak.html?pagewanted=all