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Wisława Szymborska Quotes

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Famous Wisława Szymborska Quotes

“We treat each other with exceeding courtesy; we says, it’s great to see you after all these years. Our tigers drink milk. Our hawks tread the ground. Our sharks have all drowned. Our wolves yawn beyond the open cage. Our snakes have shed their lightning, our apes their flights of fancy, our peacocks have renounced their plumes. The bats flew out of our hair long ago. We fall silent in mid-sentence, all smiles, past help. Our humans don’t know how to talk to one another.”

“-A Word On Statistics- Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. Unsure of every step: almost all the rest. Ready to help, if it doesn't take long: forty-nine. Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: fourwell, maybe five. Able to admire without envy: eighteen. Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus. Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty. Living in constant fear of someone or something: seventy-seven. Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most. Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure. Cruel when forced by circumstances: it's better not to know, not even approximately. Wise in hindsight: not many more than wise in foresight. Getting nothing out of life except things: thirty (though I would like to be wrong). Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: eighty-three, sooner or later. Those who are just: quite a few, thirty-five. But if it takes effort to understand: three. Worthy of empathy: ninety-nine. Mortal: one hundred out of one hundred a figure that has never varied yet.”

“There's nothing more debauched than thinking. This sort of wantonness runs wild like a wind-borne weed on a plot laid out for daisies. Nothing's sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risque analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat--it's music to their ears.”