“Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.”
Filter quotes by topic
Famous Czeslaw Milosz Quotes
Source: Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
“I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.”
Source: The Witness of Poetry
“It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends”
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person.”
Source: Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
“Consolation Calm down. Both your sins and your good deeds will be lost in oblivion.”
Source: Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
“All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.”
“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”
“You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.”
“Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.”
“At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.”
“Be young forever, seasons of the earth.”
Source: Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
“What is poetry which does not save nations or people?”
Source: Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004
“The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.”
“I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy”
“The revolt against one's environment is usually 'shame' of one's environment.”
“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.”