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 Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning. Octavio Paz technology power lying There is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science, without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society. Octavio Paz healthy art thinking There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot. Octavio Paz poetic sometimes two The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature. Octavio Paz creatures body mirrors No one behind, no one ahead. The path the ancients cleared has closed. And the other path, everyone's path, easy and wide, goes nowhere. I am alone and find my way. Octavio Paz path easy way By diminishing the value of silence, publicity has also diminished that of language. The two are inseparable: knowing how to speak has always meant knowing how to keep silent, knowing that there are times when one should say nothing. Octavio Paz silence knowing two To fight evil is to fight ourselves. Octavio Paz fighting evil listen to me as one listens to the rain, the years go by, the moments return, do you hear the footsteps in the next room? not here, not there: you hear them in another time that is now, listen to the footsteps of time, inventor of places with no weight, nowhere, listen to the rain running over the terrace, the night is now more night in the grove, lightning has nestled among the leaves, a restless garden adrift-go in, your shadow covers this page. Octavio Paz rain running night Poetry is not truth, it is the resurrection of presences. Octavio Paz resurrection poetry-is My body, plowed by your body, will turn into a field where one is sown and a hundred reaped. Octavio Paz hundred body fields The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature. Octavio Paz mother reality school Two opposing forces inhabit the poem: one of elevation or up-rooting, which pulls the word from the language: the other of gravity, which makes it return. The poem is an original and unique creation, but it is also reading and recitation: participation. The poet creates it; the people, by recitation, re-create it. Poet and reader are two moments of a single reality. Octavio Paz unique reading art Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. Octavio Paz grammar criticism social When we learn to speak, we learn to translate. Octavio Paz translate speak We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. Octavio Paz time-management dies time Enormous and solid but swaying, beaten by the wind but chained, murmur of a million leaves against my window. Riot of trees, surge of dark green sounds. The grove, suddenly still, is a web of fronds and branches. Octavio Paz dark tree wind 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 couple excellence relationship Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life Octavio Paz community views culture 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 silence expression history The woman who died night after night Octavio Paz goodbye night long
