Quotes from Zbigniew Herbert

forgive me also that I didn't fight like Lord Byron for the happiness of captive peoples that I watched only risings of the moon and museums

The pebbleis a perfect creatureequal to itselfmindful of its limitsfilled exactlywith a pebbly meaning

W gimnazjum panowaÅ' kult rozumu, ale, jak wiadomo, nic bardziej nie wpÅ'ywa na rozwój okultyzmu ni? urzÄ™dowy racjonalizm.

KaynaÄŸa ulaÅŸmak için ak?nt?ya kar?? yüzmeli. Ak?nt?yla yüzüp giden ÅŸey çöptür sadece.

poza tym jak zwykle handel i kopulacja

monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency

Ani mam wita? siÄ™ ani ?egna? ?yjemy na archipelagach a ta woda te sÅ'owa có? mogÄ… có? mogÄ… ksi???

Thus I am in Holland, the kingdom of things, great principality of objects. In Dutch, schoen means beautiful and at the same time clean, as if neatness was raised to the dignity of a virtue.

Ani nam wita? siÄ™ ani ?egna? ?yjemy na archipelagach a ta woda te sÅ'owa có? mogÄ… có? mogÄ… ksi???

I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology

No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning.

Even if we love someone very much, at times it happens that we forget about it.

Be courageous when the mind deceives you Be courageous In the final account only this is important

We fall asleep on words / we wake among words

Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability.

forgive me also that I didn't fight like Lord Byron for the happiness of captive peoples that I watched only risings of the moon and museums

I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology

You can be a good painter if you study Cézanne's vision. Whoever dares to copy Van Gogh falls inevitably into the hell of imitators. For this painter didn't care about masterpieces, or even good paintings... but about what is beyond all painting, all art.

A craftsman must probe to the very bottom of cruelty.

Very early on, near the beginning of my writing life, I came to believe that I had to seize on some object outside of literature. Writing as a sylistic exercise seemed barren to me. Poetry as the art of the word made me yawn. I also understood that I couldn't sustain myself very long on the poems of others. I had to go out from myself and literature, look around in the world and lay hold of other spheres of reality.

Lord I thank you for creating the world beautiful and various and for allowing me in Your fathomless goodness to visit places which were not the sites of my daily torments

The dead have need of fairy tales too.

there's a terrible silence before a predator's night sometimes an absurd airplane appears in the sky it throws out leaflets calling for surrender I would be happy to surrender but I've no one to surrender to

go upright among those who are down on their knees those with their backs turned those toppled in the dust you have survived not so that you might live you have little time you must give testimony be courageous when reason fails you be courageous in the final reckoning it is the only thing that counts and your helpless Anger - may it be like the sea whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten