Octavio Paz Quotes

Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Mexican Poet
Born: Mar 31, 1914
Died: Apr 19, 1998
Language Man Nature Time Work World
Related authors: Emily Dickinson Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Khalil Gibran Maya Angelou Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost Sophocles Walt Whitman
Deserve your dream. Octavio Paz
Dream Your Your Dream Deserve
When hypocrisy is a character trait, it also affects one's thinking, because it consists in the negation of all the aspects of reality that one finds disagreeable, irrational or repugnant. Octavio Paz
Character Reality Hypocrisy Thinking Negation Consists Finds Disagreeable Also Because Affects Trait Irrational Repugnant Aspects
I think we all have our own personality, unique and distinctive, and at the same time, I think that our own unique and distinctive personality blends with the wind, with the footsteps in the street, with the noises around the corner, and with the silence of memory, which is the great producer of ghosts. Octavio Paz
Time Great Silence Memory Personality Wind Own Think Corner Our Distinctive Ghosts Blends Footsteps Noises Around Same Same Time Which Producer Unique Street
The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern. Octavio Paz
Cause Ethics Language Relations Our Minds Worrisome Ease Disturbing Fact Between Concern Accept Rhetoric Which Perverse Games Less Twisted
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. Octavio Paz
Alone Man Solitude Only Fact He Knows Condition Human Being Human Condition Who Profoundest
Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone: it is the opening of an impalpable, transparent wall - that of our consciousness - between the world and ourselves. Octavio Paz
Alone World Our Ourselves Above Between Opening Self-Discovery Wall Realization Transparent Consciousness
Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history. Octavio Paz
Nature Silence History Noise Language Feeling Sense Something Recourse True Missing Also Makes Contrary Human Literature Against Deprivation Us Meaningless Expression
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time. Octavio Paz
Time Before Universe Par Seed Excellence Point Couple Return Forces Metaphor Human Forms Intersection
If contemporary artists sincerely seek to be original, unique, and new, they should begin by disregarding the notions of originality, individuality, and innovation: they are the cliches of our time. Octavio Paz
Time Be Original Innovation Our Our Time Seek Individuality New Sincerely Contemporary Cliches Begin Artists Should Notions Original Unique Originality
Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual. Octavio Paz
Love Surrender Love Is Penetrating Mutual Only Attempt Another Being Succeed
A work survives its readers; after a hundred or two hundred years, it is read by new readers who impose on it new modes of reading and interpretation. The work survives because of these interpretations, which are, in fact, resurrections: without them, there would be no work. Octavio Paz
Work Reading Interpretation Hundred Hundred Years Would Would-Be Fact No Work New Read Readers Because Without Impose Years Survives In Fact After Which Them Modes Who Interpretations Two
The sound of water is worth more than all the poets' words. Octavio Paz
Words Water Worth More Poets Sound Than
Man, it seems to me, is not in history: he is history. Octavio Paz
Me History Man Seems He
Abstract painting seeks to be a pure pictorial language, and thus attempts to escape the essential impurity of all languages: the recourse to signs or forms that have meanings shared by everyone. Octavio Paz
Language Signs Pure Painting Everyone Seeks Recourse Attempts Shared Abstract Thus Pictorial Escape Essential Forms Meanings Languages
To the poet fated to be a poet, self-expression is as natural and as involuntary as breathing is to us ordinary mortals. Octavio Paz
Natural Poet Mortals Involuntary Self-Expression Ordinary Breathing Us Fated
For the Chinese, the Greeks, the Mayans, or the Egyptians, nature was a living totality, a creative being. For this reason, art, according to Aristotle, is imitation; the poet imitates the creative gesture of nature. Octavio Paz
Art Nature Creative Poet Gesture Living Imitates Imitation Totality Aristotle According Greeks Egyptians Being Chinese Reason
In each verse, a decision awaits us, and we can't choose to close our eyes and let instinct work on its own. Poetic instinct consists of an alert tension. Octavio Paz
Work Eyes Decision Own Our Consists Poetic Tension Instinct Verse Close Us Choose Awaits Each Alert
Even though the society that Marx foresaw is far from being an historical reality, Marxism has penetrated so deeply in history that we are all Marxists, one way or another, even unknowingly. Octavio Paz
History Reality Society Way Though One-Way Marx Marxism Another Historical Being Far Even Deeply
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. A constant coming and going: wisdom lies in the momentary. Octavio Paz
Wisdom Change Neither Constant Lies Between Dialectic Coming Nor Going Momentary Two
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism. Octavio Paz
Art Criticism Other Distinguishes Modern Modern Art Ages
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. Octavio Paz
Wisdom Change Neither Lies Between Dialectic Nor Two
The characteristic feature of modernity is criticism: what is new is set over and against what is old, and it is this constant contrast that constitutes the continuity of tradition. Octavio Paz
Old Criticism Characteristic Constant Feature Over New Tradition Continuity Contrast Against Modernity Set
No one is alone, and each change here brings about another change there. Octavio Paz
Alone Change About No-One Another Each Here Brings
Technology is neutral and sterile. Now, technology is the nature of modern man; it is our environment and our horizon. Of course, every work of man is a negation of nature, but at the same time, it is a bridge between nature and us. Technology changes nature in a more radical and decisive manner: it throws it out. Octavio Paz
Work Time Nature Technology Man Radical Every Changes Negation Our Out Horizon More Neutral Throws Environment Between Sterile Course Same Modern Same Time Modern Man Decisive Us Manner Bridge Now
Surrealism is not a poetry but a poetics, and even more, and more decisively, a world vision. Octavio Paz
World Vision More More And More Poetry Surrealism Even
Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now. Octavio Paz
Time Speed Our Distant Once Ancestors Neighbor Posterity Archaic Picasso He Him Without Permits Go Going Happen Happening Places Centuries Next-Door Neighbor Now Letting Letting Go Belong Here Two
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