Quotes by Polish Authors - Page 8

Language is the only homeland.
Czesław Miłosz
The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.Scruples are alien to the black panther.Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.The self-critical jackal does not exist.The locust, alligator, trichina, horseflylive as they live and are glad of it.The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilosbut in other respects it is light.There is nothing more animal-likethan a clear conscienceon the third planet of the Sun.
Wisława Szymborska
If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.
Andrzej Sapkowski
-A Word On Statistics-Out of every hundred people, those who always know better:fifty-two.Unsure of every step:almost all the rest. Ready to help,if it doesn't take long:forty-nine. Always good,because they cannot be otherwise:fourwell, maybe five. Able to admire without envy:eighteen. Led to errorby youth (which passes):sixty, plus or minus. Those not to be messed with:four-and-forty. Living in constant fearof someone or something:seventy-seven. Capable of happiness:twenty-some-odd at most. Harmless alone,turning savage in crowds:more than half, for sure. Cruelwhen forced by circumstances:it's better not to know,not even approximately. Wise in hindsight:not many morethan wise in foresight. Getting nothing out of life except things:thirty(though I would like to be wrong). Balled up in painand without a flashlight in the dark:eighty-three, sooner or later. Those who are just:quite a few, thirty-five. But if it takes effort to understand:three. Worthy of empathy:ninety-nine. Mortal:one hundred out of one hundreda figure that has never varied yet.
Wisława Szymborska
Cold stars reflected in the waterAbyss beckons us his dark distance.Our world, only one of hundreds,In which we can not see the sun.In this world, I am uneasy,I want to touch another planets.Because there is dark and cramped,That spirit is calling me to run.Wander through the world I'm tired,And every day to meet the dawn,For me this world has closed its doors.I want to go to other worlds,To know all mysteries of their,And here never to return.
Arthur Tomaszewicz
They're both convincedthat a sudden passion joined them.Such certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty is more beautiful still.Since they'd never met before, they're surethat there'd been nothing between them.But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--perhaps they've passed by each other a million times?I want to ask themif they don't remember--a moment face to facein some revolving door?perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd?a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver?but I know the answer.No, they don't remember.They'd be amazed to hearthat Chance has been toying with themnow for years.Not quite ready yetto become their Destiny,it pushed them close, drove them apart,it barred their path,stifling a laugh,and then leaped aside.There were signs and signals,even if they couldn't read them yet.Perhaps three years agoor just last Tuesdaya certain leaf flutteredfrom one shoulder to another?Something was dropped and then picked up.Who knows, maybe the ball that vanishedinto childhood's thicket?There were doorknobs and doorbellswhere one touch had covered another beforehand.Suitcases checked and standing side by side.One night, perhaps, the same dream,grown hazy by morning.Every beginningis only a sequel, after all,and the book of eventsis always open halfway through.
Wisława Szymborska
We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.... We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation)
Stanisław Lem
One day I found him amid large packages from which spilled attractive, glossy paperbacks with mythical covers. He had tried to use, as a "generator of ideas" — for we were running out of them — those works of fantastic literature, that popular genre (especially in the States), called, by a persistent misconception, "science fiction." He had not read such books before; he was annoyed — indignant, even — expecting variety, finding monotony. "They have everything except fantasy," he said. Indeed, a mistake. The authors of these pseudo-scientific fairy tales supply the public with what it wants: truisms, clichés, stereotypes, all sufficiently costumed and made "wonderful" so that the reader may sink into a safe state of surprise and at the same time not be jostled out of his philosophy of life. If there is progress in a culture, the progress is above all conceptual, but literature, the science-fiction variety in particular, has nothing to do with that.
Stanisław Lem
I was never able to conquer the distance between persons. An animal is fixed to its here-and-now by the senses, but man manages to detach himself, to remember, to sympathize with others, to visualize their states of mind and feelings: this, fortunately, is not true. In such attempts at pseudo merging and transferral we are only able, imperfectly, darkly, to visualize ourselves. What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance ofthe generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling.We are like snails, each stuck to his own leaf.
Stanisław Lem
We owe our liberation to chemistry," he went on. "For all perception is but a change in the concentration of hydrogen ions on the surface of the brain cells. Seeing me, you actually experience a disturbance in the sodium-potassium equilibrium across your neuron membranes. So all we have todo is send a few well-chosen molecules down into those cortical mitochondria, activate the right neurohumoral-synaptic transmission effector sites, and your fondest dreams come true. But you knowall this," he concluded, subdued.
Stanisław Lem
I never read to kill time. Killing time is like killing someone's wife or a child. There is nothing more precious for me than time.
Stanisław Lem
Fifty years from now if an understanding of man's origins, his evolution, his history, his progress is not in the common place of the school books we shall not exist.
Jacob Bronowski
We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, "I am lying here in the dark waiting for death." The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, "Oh, nonsense!" and stood over him as if transfixed.Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - "The horror! The horror!"I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt -"Mistah Kurtz - he dead.
Joseph Conrad
A world compelled to good alone is as much a shrine to compulsion as a world compelled to evil only.The Twenty-first Voyage
Stanisław Lem
We did not speak of what we had seen. At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, 'Behold. This is the worst thing man can do'.
Irene Gut Opdyke
The opportunity for evil in itself does not suffice; people need a rationale as well. Consider how unpleasant, how awkward it must be when your neighbor, catching his breath (and that can happen anytime), screams, 'Why?' - or, 'Aren't you ashamed?!' It's embarrassing to stand there without a ready answer. A crowbar makes a poor rebuttal, everybody senses that. The whole trick lies in having the proper grounds to brush aside such aggravating objections. Contemptuously. Everyone wants to commit a villainy without having to feel like a villain.
Stanisław Lem
...But first appearances are often deceptive. Not everything monstrous looking is evil, and not everything fair is good...and in every fairytale, there is a grain of truth.
Andrzej Sapkowski
It isn't the evil and indecent who are flung down into the depths, no! Oh, no! The evil and decisive fling down those who are moral, honest and noble but maladroit, hesitant and full of scruples.
Andrzej Sapkowski
More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Cæsar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, a wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Cæsar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine æsthetic feeling is also a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
He always smiles, even when contemplating nothing good.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
We belong to a nation, whose fate is to shoot at the enemy with diamonds.
Stanisław Pigoń
It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.
Joseph Conrad
He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of individuality which excites and escapes.
Joseph Conrad
This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
If you want to know the age of the Earth—look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports—no man was more respected or more damned than—Lord Jim.
Joseph Conrad
In my fantasies, I was always caught up in heroic struggles, and I saw myself saving lives, sacrificing myself for others. I had far loftier ambitions than mere romance.
Irene Gut Opdyke
But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition— and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation— and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity— the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
Joseph Conrad
The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo. C Rosten
A poor man is a living dead one.
Anzia Yezierska
Beloved, Dearest One:How I long to shout to the world our happiness. I feel that you and I are the only two people alive in the world - the only people that know the secret meaning of existence.I have no diamond rings, no gifts of love that other lovers have for their beloved. My poetry is all I have to offer you. And so I dedicate my collected verses, 'Poems of Poverty,' to you, beloved.Morris.
Anzia Yezierska
Our contemporary poverty is as transparent as glass and as invisible as the air. Our poverty is kilometer-long lines, the constant elbowing, spiteful officials, trains late without reason, the water cut off by some disaster (...), the monotony of living without any hope whatsoever, the decaying historic cities, the provinces emptying the rivers poisoned. Our poverty is the grace of the totalitarian state by whose grace we live.
Tadeusz Konwicki
His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines.
Joseph Conrad
And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth.
Joseph Conrad
If I ever figured out how to go back in time, I'd tell my nine-year-old self to run the other way when a gnome showed up in her room promising a life of magic and adventure.
Anna Staniszewski
... he's most probably in a closet so deep he's, like, in Narnia.
K.A. Merikan
We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.
Alice MIller
One must have sensitivity of the princess and endurance of the whore.
Anna Dymna
A verbal contract is worth about as much as the paper it's written on.
Samuel Goldwyn
The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver--over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher thanthe wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a somber gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur.All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace. What were we who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? I felt how big, how confoundedly big, was that thing thatcouldn't talk, and perhaps was deaf as well. What was in there?
Joseph Conrad
It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem.
Mark Kac
a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.
Wisława Szymborska
Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.
Joseph Conrad
~Have NO fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with YOU, therefore NO harm can befall YOU; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence~
John Paul II
Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ's Cross at the center of that history? . . . But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and--to repeat once again--Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man's lot and participates in his destiny.
John Paul II
If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering.
Maria Faustina Kowalska
Some day, we will know the value of suffering, but then we will no longer be able to suffer.
Maria Faustina Kowalska
Regardless of the subject of my films … I am looking for a way of evoking in audiences feelings similar to my own: the physically painful impotence and sorrow that assail me when I see a man weeping at the bus stop, when I observe people struggling vainly to get close to others, when I see someone eating up the left-overs in a cheap restaurant, when I see the first blotches on a woman's hand and know that she too is bitterly aware of them, when I see the kind of appalling and irreparable injustice that so visibly scars the human face. I want this pain to come across to my audience, to see this physical agony, which I think I am beginning to fathom, to seep into my work.
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Truth wears a crown of thorns
Maria Faustina Kowalska
My own experience of over 60 years in biomedical research amply demonstrated that without the use of animals and of human beings, it would have been impossible to acquire the important knowledge needed to prevent much suffering and premature death not only among humans but also among [other] animals.
Albert Sabin
No one wants to suffer. But that is the fate of each. And some suffer more. Not necessarily of their own volition. It's not about to enduring the suffering. It's about how you endure it.
Andrzej Sapkowski
Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after him carefully and would not let him play with other children for fear of being robbed. When the boy was grown up and wanted to go out into the world, his mother said: “We have done so much for you,we ought to be able to share your wealth.” Then her son took a large piece of gold out of his brain and gave it to his mother. He lived in great style with a friend who, however, robbed him one night and ran away. After that the man resolved to guard his secret and to go out to work, because his reserves were visibly dwindling. One day he fell in love with a beautiful girl who loved him too, but no more than the beautiful clothes he gave her so lavishly. He married her and was very happy, but after two years she died and he spent the rest of his wealth on her funeral, which had to be splendid. Once, as he was creeping through the streets,weak,poor, and unhappy, he saw a beautiful little pair of boots that would have been perfect for his wife. He forgot that she was dead- perhaps because his emptied brain no longer worked- and entered the shop to buy the boots. But in that very moment he fell, and the shopkeeper saw a dead man lying on the ground.This story sounds as though it were invented, but it is true from beginning to end. There are people who have to pay for the smallest things in life with their very substance and their spinal cord. That is a constantly recurring pain, and then when they are tired of suffering…Does not mother love belong to the ‘smallest’, but also indispensable, things in life, for which many people paradoxically have to pay by giving up their living selves?
Alice MIller
This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain...
Joseph Conrad
Suffering is the greatest treasure on earth; it purifies the soul. In suffering, we learn who our true friend is.
Maria Faustina Kowalska
I am who I am.A coincidence no less unthinkablethan any other.I could have had differentancestors, after all.I could have flutteredfrom another nestor crawled bescaledfrom under another tree.Nature's wardrobeholds a fair supply of costumes:spider, seagull, field mouse.Each fits perfectly right offand is dutifully worninto shreds.
Wisława Szymborska
I wondered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
Joseph Conrad
I lived willy-nilly. Without any sense of being part of the order of things. I lived by fragments, pieces, scraps, in the moment, at random, from incident to incident, as if buffeted by ebb and flow. Oftentimes I had the impression that someone had torn the majority of pages out of the book of my life, because they were empty, or because they belonged not to me but to someone else’s life.
Wiesław Myśliwski
It is better to go forward without a goal, than to have a goal and stay in one place, and it is certainly better than to stay in one place without a goal.
Andrzej Sapkowski
If you have more dreams than achievements-you're young.
Shimon Peres
We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive - survive the condemnations, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things - they look small enough sometimes too - by which some of us are totally and completely undone.
Joseph Conrad