Czeslaw Milosz

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.

Love means to look at yourself_x000D_ The way one looks at distant things_x000D_ For you are only one thing among many.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers._x000D_ You can kill one, but another is born._x000D_ The words are written down, the deed, the date.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy

The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.

Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting.

A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him.

When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.