Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
An unread author is an author who is a victim of the worst kind of censorship, indifference - a censorship more effective than the Ecclesiastical Index.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Indifference is the most damaging form of censorship for an author, as it prevents their work from being acknowledged or read.
In this quote, Octavio Paz highlights the critical issue of indifference as a form of censorship that is more destructive than formal bans on literature, such as those imposed by the Ecclesiastical Index. An unread author suffers not just from a lack of recognition, but from a profound injustice where their ideas, thoughts, and creativity remain unacknowledged, ultimately stripping them of their voice and impact on society.
Themes
IndifferenceCensorshipLiteratureVoicelessnessRecognition
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literature in society.
More from Octavio Paz
All quotes βBy suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
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The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Octavio PazRead
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
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If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Octavio PazRead
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Octavio PazRead
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