Witold Gombrowicz quotes

Witold Gombrowicz was a Polish novelist and playwright, renowned for his innovative and provocative literary style. His works explore themes of identity, form, and the absurdity of social conventions. He became one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century European literature. Here are 23 of his quotes:

Great! I've written something stupid, but I haven't signed a contract with anyone to produce solely wise and perfect works. I gave vent to my stupidity... and here I am, reborn. (Witold Gombrowicz)
Don't be fooled by your own wisdom. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of an idiot. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Our element is unending immaturity. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
I didn't go to the lectures. My valet, who was more distinguished than I, went instead. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Beauty beheld in solitude is even more lethal. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
You are ugly when you love her, you are beautiful and fresh, vital and free, modern and poetic when you don't... you are more beautiful as an orphan than as your mother's son. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
You, oh mature ones, keep company solely with other mature ones, and your maturity is so mature that it can only chum up with maturity! View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
I have never in my life needed God - from the infancy, since I was 5, I was self-sufficient. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
The history of culture shows that foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. It does not flourish on the fields of pure ignorance but on the fields tirelessly plowed by doctors and professors. Great absurdities do not flourish where one is busy with everyday life. No wonder that sometimes most vigorous thinkers come up with utmost stupidities. (Witold Gombrowicz)
It is naive to believe that the admiration for a masterpiece is spontaneous. The admiration, to a great extent, is not born within people but between people, as if we forced each other to admire (while no one is "personally” enraptured). View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
To me, art almost always speaks more forcefully when it appears in an imperfect, accidental, and fragmentary way, somehow just signaling its presence, allowing one to feel it through the ineptitude of the interpretation. I prefer the Chopin that reaches me in the street from an open window to the Chopin served in great style from the concert stage. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
I became bold because I had absolutely nothing to lose: neither honors, nor earnings, nor friends. I had to find myself anew and rely only on myself, because I could rely on no one else. My form is my solitude. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
The difference between western and eastern intellectuals is that the former have not been kicked in the ass enough. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
I am reading Sienkiewicz. What tormenting reading. What a powerful genius! And there never was such a first-rate writer of the second-rate class. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Not surprisingly, because too much attention to one object leads to distraction, this one object conceals everything else, and when we focus on one point on the map we know that all other points are eluding us. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
To contradict, even in little matters, is the supreme necessity of art today. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
It is in the prime of youth that man sinks into empty phrases and grimaces. It's in this smithy that our maturity is forged. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Man does not fear death, only the suffering. (Witold Gombrowicz)
I am a collection of the family's body parts. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz
Great poetry must be admired, because it is great and because it is poetry, and so we admire it. View quote
Witold Gombrowicz

Witold Gombrowicz

Witold Gombrowicz - Image
Occupation: Polish Novelist
Born: August 4, 1904
Died: July 24, 1969
Quotes count: 23
Wikipedia: Witold Gombrowicz

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