Wislawa Szymborska Quotes

Quotes by Wislawa Szymborska
 

Thinking about it

Submitted by scotese on Wed, 2009-02-04 12:32

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

Victor Hugo
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Now do you understand old and new money?

Submitted by scotese on Wed, 2010-03-31 19:03

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Aristotle
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The Sentence

Submitted by scotese on Sat, 2010-03-13 14:28

And the stone word fell

On my still-living breast.

Never mind, I was ready.

I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:

I must kill memory once and for all,

I must turn my soul to stone,

I must learn to live again --

Unless...Summer's ardent rustling

Is like a festival outside my window.

For a long time I've foreseen this

Brilliant day, deserted house.

Anna Ahkmatova
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Purpose

Submitted by scotese on Sun, 2009-10-11 09:03

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Rainer Maria Rilke
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Perfect Vision

Submitted by lcheile on Sun, 2009-11-29 08:33

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Little Prince

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People like us

Submitted by scotese on Thu, 2006-12-14 15:21

We were never very demonstrative in our family; poor folk who toil and are full of cares are not so.  It is not their way to protest what they already know.  When my mother sayst to me "dear boy" it means much more than when another says it.

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

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Remarque on Being in the Open

Submitted by lnarl on Mon, 2009-06-29 04:35

One despairs more decently in a landscape than in a two-room-and-kitchenette apartment. More comfortably, too.

Erich Maria Remarque

Arch of Triumph (translated by Walter Sorell and Denver Lindley)

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Lessons taught

Submitted by scotese on Thu, 2006-12-07 13:43

We remember mighty little of all that rubbish.  Anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us.  At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood--nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs.

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

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A Heavy Pack

Submitted by scotese on Thu, 2006-12-14 15:14

I lean against the wall and grip my helmet and rifle and hold them as tight as I can, but I cannot take another step, the staircase fades before my eyes, I support myself with the butt of my rifle against my feet and clench my teeth fiercely, but I cannot speak a word...

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

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What I tell my students to remember when they return to Whitney Young.

Submitted by scotese on Thu, 2006-12-14 15:27

I imagined leave would be different from this.  Indeed, it was different a year ago.  It is I of course that have changed in the interval.

Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

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