Czesław Miłosz

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In a room wherepeople unanimously maintaina conspiracy of silence,one word of truthsounds like a pistol shot

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LearningTo believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life

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The bright side of the planet moves toward darknessAnd the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,And for me, now as then, it is too much.There is too much world

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Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to

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Since poetry deals with the singular, not the general, it cannot - if it is good poetry - look at things of this earth other than as colorful, variegated, and exciting, and so, it cannot reduce life, with all its pain, horror, suffering, and ecstasy, to a unified tonality of boredom and complaint. By necessity poetry is therefore on the side of being and against nothingness