Czesław Miłosz Quotes

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

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.

Language is the only homeland.

Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

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

I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.

LearningTo believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

In a room wherepeople unanimously maintaina conspiracy of silence, one word of truthsounds like a pistol shot.

The purpose of poetry is to remind ushow 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.

You see how I tryTo reach with wordsWhat matters mostAnd how I fail.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person...

I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A river, suffering because reflections of clouds and tress and not clouds and trees.

The bright side of the planet moves toward darknessAnd the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour, And for me, now as then, it is too much.There is too much world.

Poetry is an attempt to penetrate the dense reality to find a place where the simplest things look as new as through the eyes of a child.

If there is no God, Not everything is permitted to man.He is still his brother's keeperAnd he is not permitted to sadden his brother, By saying there is no God.

If the world is divided between Fascism and Communism, obviously Fascism must lose since it is the last, desperate refuge of the bourgeoisie