Czeslaw Milosz Quotes

Every organism, every human being, must conquer or serve.

If we are not represented, we are slaves.

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

It is bad to have a servant, but worse to have a master.

Wild beasts hate nets, and people hate their superiors.

Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

It has always seemed to me that those who are without power, who have to create their own in a makeshifit way, know more about life than those who govern.

Some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

If you don't want to be a slave, stop acting like a slave.

I'm tired of being considered property.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

Social change can be painful for all involved—oppressor and oppressed.

The path of freedom is blocked much more by those who wish to obey than by those who wish to command.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

Most people say they're slaves, but in my opinion, to say that I am a slave is to take ownership of actually being a slave - to be a tool, be a thing. Basically cattle.

It is easier to rule others than to keep from being ruled oneself.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means... the power of some men to make other men what THEY please.

We're not trying to take power away or rule anybody - we're just trying to get up from under the rulers.

The role of the inhabitants of the American hemisphere has for centuries been purely passive. Politically they were nonexistent. We are still in a position lower than slavery, and therefore it is more difficult for us to rise to the enjoyment of freedom.

If you give people an opportunity for self government and freedom, most people will reach for freedom

The elemental human desire for self-government knows no geographical or racial boundaries.

In another century all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us.