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Quote by Czesław Miłosz

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The Separate Notebooks

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Czesław Miłosz

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“From all over the planet they came…. They came in companies and alone, with money and without, knowing and naïve. They tore themselves from warm hearths and good homes, promising to return; they fled from cold hearts and bad debts, never to return. They were farmers and merchants and sailors and slaves and abolitionists and soldiers of fortune and ladies of the night. They jumped bail to start their journey, and jumped ship at journey’s end. They were the pillars of their communities, and their communities’ dregs….”

Gold Rush
Book:The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
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“As the golden news spread beyond California to the outside world, it triggered the most astonishing mass movement of peoples since the Crusades. From all over the planet they came—from Mexico and Peru and Chile and Argentina, from Oregon and Hawaii and Australia and New Zealand and China, from the American North and the American South, from Britain and France and Germany and Italy and Greece and Russia.”

Gold Rush
Book:The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream
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“In all these years, he said, he was yet to come across a single gold nugget that brought any real happiness to the person who held it. Long coat bob said his family had found one large nugget long ago, centuries back, that resembled a human hand. And it became so coveted by members of his family that out caused fights between brother and sister, sister and mother, father and son. During one dispute an old woman struck her nephew with the gold hand. The nephew was struck dumb and his mental capacity was like a water hole that could never be more than half full after that. And the old woman was so ashamed by her actions that she begged Long Coat Bob's grandfather, the oldest living member of the family, to hide the gold away in a place where no one else could find it. And any other gold nuggets that were found from that moment on Long Coat Bob's grandfather reasoned, were best hidden away with it too.”

GoldGreedTreasureAustraliaMiningGold Rush
Book:All Our Shimmering Skies
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“And you wouldn't believe what he said then, Tom Berry whispered to his enraptured audience. He said, he and his family saw no value whatsoever in all that gold. He said real treasure was a fresh water spring. He said that the real jewels of the earth were gooseberries that grow on trees. He said a good dig in his world is when you stick a fist down a bubble in the mud and find a long-necked turtle to grab hold of. He said true wealth isn't having your pockets filled with coin but your belly filled with white turtle flesh cooked in its juices, shelled down on a bed of coals. He said that the only use for gold was to glitter, and he said glitter of gold was like the glittering smiles of us white men he'd seen in town, dressed in expensive clothes. He said that gold can't be trusted. He said we've all got the gold disease and it rots our hearts. It poisons us. He said it changes who we are, how we behave. [...] He said the long-neck turtle didn't do that, Tom Berry said. He said that the turtle was a gift from the earth that kept on giving. He said he'd rubbed turtle fat on the chests of sick infants to make them strong again. He said the oil and meat from a single turtle can keep a dying elder alive to see an extra month of sunrises. And then he asked me if I thought a month of sunrises was worth more or less than the box of gold that rested in the hole below us. I said, "It depended on how you spent the gold and how you spent the month of sunrises." And Longcoat Bob smiled at that. And he pointed again at Tom Berry's chest and said, "Good heart, Tom Berry. You speak of good things that can come from gold.”

GoldAustraliaGold RushGreetOutbackMining Town
Book:All Our Shimmering Skies
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“I saw one funny thing happen here. Of course it took a good many relays to get our outfits down to the lakes. On one of these trips I saw a team of black Newfoundland dogs coming down loaded. Our friend the one-horned bull was going up with two empty sleds hitched to him. They happened to meet in one of the narrowest places on the trail, where the mountain rose sheer on the dogs’ side, and dropped down almost perpendicularly on the bull’s side. As luck would have it, the only horn the bull had was on the dogs’ side. When about midway of the team, the bull made a lunge at the dogs, caught the traces under his horn, and lurched back, stubbing his toe. Both outfits rolled down the hillside together. The drivers, of course, were walking behind their animals, and, having everything suddenly cleared between them, jumped together and struck a few blows. They then sad down and slid after their teams. Of course the line couldn’t stop for a little thing like this and went on, but afterwards I saw both teams on the trail again.”

DogsGold RushNewfoundland Retiriever
Book:A Dog
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