The American: a titan enamored of progress, a fanatical giant who worships "getting things done" but never asks himself what he is doing nor why he is doing it. Octavio Paz More Quotes by Octavio Paz More Quotes From Octavio Paz With great difficulty advancing by millimeters each year, I carve a road out of the rock. For millenniums my teeth have wasted and my nails broken to get there, to the other side, to the light and the open air. And now that my hands bleed and my teeth tremble, unsure in a cavity cracked by thirst and dust, I pause and contemplate my work. I have spent the second part of my life breaking the stones, drilling the walls, smashing the doors, removing the obstacles I placed between the light and myself in the first part of my life. Octavio Paz wall rocks air The beloved is already in our being, as thirst and "otherness." Being is eroticism. Inspiration is that strange Octavio Paz voice inspiration men Love is the revelation of the other person's freedom. Octavio Paz revelations persons love-is To love is to undress our names. Octavio Paz names love-is It is always difficult to give oneself up; few persons anywhere ever succeed in doing so, and even fewer transcend the possessive stage to know love for what it actually is: a perpetual discovery, and immersion in the waters of reality, an unending re-creation. Octavio Paz discovery giving reality Poet: gardener of epitaphs. Octavio Paz design poet art Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone. Octavio Paz realization self discovery It is not proper to project our feelings onto things or to attribute our own sensations and passions to them. Can it also be improper to see in them a guide, a way of life? To learn the art of remaining motionless amid the agitation of the whirlwind, to learn to remain still and to be as transparent as this fixed light amid the frantic branches this may be a program for life. Octavio Paz passion light art Humankind is never what he is but the self he seeks. Octavio Paz human-beings humans self Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think. Octavio Paz doe men thinking Each time we try to express ourselves we have to break with ourselves. Octavio Paz creativity break trying Beyond happiness or unhappiness, though it is both things, love is intensity; it does not give us eternity but life, that second in which the doors of time and space open just a crack: here is there and now is always. Octavio Paz space doors love-is I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers. Octavio Paz passion believe book Distraction is our habitual state. Not the distraction of the person who withdraws from the world in order to shut himself up in the secret and ever-changing land of his fantasy, but the distraction of the person who is always outside himself, lost in the trivial, senseless, turmoil of everyday life. Octavio Paz land secret order Poetry, in the past, was the center of our society, but with modernity it has retreated to the outskirts. I think the exile of poetry is also the exile of the best of humankind. Octavio Paz our-society past thinking Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. Octavio Paz grace giving What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism. Octavio Paz criticism age art The world is born when two people kiss Octavio Paz kissing two people The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder. Octavio Paz possibility purpose wonder What characterizes a poem is its necessary dependence on words as much as its struggle to transcend them. Octavio Paz poetry struggle art
