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Quotes from Daylight — Czesław Miłosz

1911–2004 Poland

← All quotes by Czesław Miłosz

6 quotes

He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.

Daylight (1953)

For a country without a past is nothing, a word
That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning,
A perishable wall destroyed by flame,
An echo of animal emotions.

Daylight (1953)

You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.

Daylight (1953)

He doesn't know birds live
In another time than man.
He doesn't know a tree lives
In another time than birds
And will grow slowly
Upward in a gray column
Thinking with its roots
Of the silver of underworld kingdoms.

Daylight (1953)

Wherever he steps, there always
Endures traced in sand
A large-toed footprint
Which clamors to be tried out
By his childish foot arriving
From the virgin forests.

Daylight (1953)

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself,
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

Daylight (1953)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Czesław Miłosz (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.