Zbigniew Herbert quotes:
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I do not turn to history to draw from it an easy lesson of hope, but to confront my experience with that of others, to acquire something I might call universal compassion, and also a sense of responsibility, responsibility for the state of my conscience.
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I thank You Lord for creating the world beautiful and various and if this is Your seduction I am seduced for good and past all forgiveness
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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
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Study the world's skin before you set out to look for its heart.
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The dead have need of fairy tales too.
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And if the City falls and one survives he shall carry the City within on the roads of exile he shall be the City
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Be courageous when the mind deceives you Be courageous In the final account only this is important
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Even if we love someone very much, at times it happens that we forget about it.
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I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology
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I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.
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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.
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No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning.