292 Quotes by Octavio Paz

a human being is never what he is but the self he seeks.

There was only one huge word with no back to itA word like a sun

man, tree of images,words which are flowers become fruits which are deeds.

CodaPerhaps to love is to learnto walk through this world.To learn to be silentlike the oak and the linden of the fable.To learn to see.Your glance scattered seeds.It planted a tree. I talkbecause you shake its leaves.

There was only one huge world with no back to itA world like a sunOne day it broke into tiny piecesThey were the words of the language we now speakPieces that will never come togetherBroken mirrors where the world sees itself shatterered

Art is the opposite of dissipation, in the physical and spiritual sense of the word: it is concentration, desire that seeks incarnation.

In my window night invents another night

I went to the little window and inhaled the country air. One could hear the breathing of the night, feminine, enormous.("The Blue Bouquet")

The blue light of the rising moon fell on the rocks and the scant forest of the taiga, revealing each projecting rock, each tree in a peculiar fashion, different from the way they looked by day. Everything seemed real but different than in the daytime. It was as if the world had a second face, a nocturnal face.