Wisława Szymborska Quotes

a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.

Dividing earth and skyis not the right wayto think about this wholeness.It only allows one to liveat...

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.Scruples are alien to the black panther.Piranhas do no...

We live longerbut less preciselyand in shorter sentences.

I am who I am.A coincidence no less unthinkablethan any other.I could have had differentancestors, a...

I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet d...

Four billion people on this earthbut my imagination is still the same.It's bad with large numbers.It...

When I pronounce the word Future,the first syllable already belongs to the past.When I pronounce the...

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way,but what I reject is more numerous,denser, mo...

Memories come to mind like excavated statuesthat have misplaced their heads.

I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over...

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the im...

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and ...

Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this re...

Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know so...

The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilosbut in other respects it is light.There is nothing ...

I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are p...

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will mak...

Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperat...

In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single sto...

Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and ...

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Sol...

No one feels good at four in the morning.If ants feel good at four in the morning—three cheers for t...

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however love...

I am telling himwhat he wants to hear: antsdying of love underthe constellation of the dandelion.I s...

The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the...

A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; ...

When it comes, you’ll be dreamingthat you don’t need to breathe;that breathless silence isthe music ...

We have a soul at times.No one’s got it non-stop,for keeps.Day after day,year after yearmay pass wit...

-A Word On Statistics-Out of every hundred people, those who always know better:fifty-two.Unsure of ...

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after al...

The joy of writing.The power of preserving.Revenge of a mortal hand.

They're both convincedthat a sudden passion joined them.Such certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty ...