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Eternal Memory of the dead lasts as long as they are paid with memory.

— Wisława Szymborska on the Nobel Prize website (1996)

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More quotes by Wisława Szymborska

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists.

The Poet and the World (1996)

For the sake of research,
the big picture
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.

Poems New and Collected (1998)

They were neither good nor evil now — every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.

Poems New and Collected (1998)

Toy balloon
once kidnapped by the wind —
come home, and I will say:
There are no children here.

Poems New and Collected (1998)

Everything the dead predicted has turned out completely different.
Or a little bit different — which is to say, completely different.

Poems New and Collected (1998)

All Wisława Szymborska quotes →

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Women and elephants never forget an injury.

Saki Reginald (1904)

Man should possess an infinite appetite for life. It should be self-evident to him, all the time, that life is superb, glorious, endlessly rich, infinitely desirable.

Colin Wilson The Philosopher's Stone (1969)

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

Thomas Campbell

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as recollecting.

William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Wisława Szymborska (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.