Wisława Szymborska quotes

Wisława Szymborska was a renowned Polish poet, essayist, and translator, celebrated for her insightful and ironic poetry. Her work explores philosophical themes, everyday life, and the complexities of human existence. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her outstanding contributions to world poetry. Here are 153 of her quotes:

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Wisława Szymborska

Somewhere out there the world must have an end.

Wisława Szymborska

We're extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.

Wisława Szymborska

Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.

Wisława Szymborska

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

Wisława Szymborska

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.

Wisława Szymborska

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.

Wisława Szymborska

You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.

Wisława Szymborska

Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.

Wisława Szymborska

I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.

Wisława Szymborska

I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

Wisława Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

Wisława Szymborska

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."

Wisława Szymborska

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

Wisława Szymborska

There's nothing more debauched than thinking.

Wisława Szymborska

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

Wisława Szymborska

I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of life's wisdom.

Wisława Szymborska

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.

Wisława Szymborska

Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

Wisława Szymborska

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

Wisława Szymborska

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

Wisława Szymborska

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Wisława Szymborska