Czeslaw Milosz Quotes

There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The river itself portrays humanity precisely, with its tortuous windings, its accumulation of driftwood, its unsuspected depths, and its crystalline shallows, singing in the Summer sun. Barriers may be built across its path, but they bring only power, as the conquering of an obstacle is always sure to do. Sometimes when the rocks and stone-clad hills loom large ahead, and eternity itself would be needed to carve a passage, there is an easy way around. The discovery of it makes the river sing with gladness and turns the murmurous deeps to living water, bright with ripples and foam.

I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion.

I saw doves and I thought they were rocks, but they were asleep. My breath made them stir, and they rocks took flight, the earth exploding... and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too.

An undisturbed river is as perfect as we will ever know, every refractive slide of cold water a glimpse of eternity.

Rivers neede a spring.

I gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me.

I have enjoyed the trees & scenery of KY exceedingly. How shall I ever tell of the miles & miles of beauty that have been flowing into me in such measure?

A man of wisdom delights in water.

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice.

Silver flow the streams from Celos to Erui In the green fields of Lebennin! Tall grows the grass there. In the wind from the Sea The white lilies sway, And the golden bells are shaken of mallos and alfirin In the green fields of Lebennin, In the wind from the Sea!

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.

Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.

It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.

Let the mountains talk, let the river run. Once more, and forever.

My altars are the mountains and the ocean.

We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep, we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and springs of wildflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak. But we hear.

I thought how lovely and how strange a river is.

He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.

Laugh out, O stream, from your bed of green, / Where you lie in the sun's embrace; / And talk to the reeds that o'er you lean / To touch your dimpled face.

It's nice sometimes to be the river rather than the rock.

And see the rivers how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep!