More Quotes by Octavio Paz
We must cultivate and defend particularity, individuality, and irregularity-life. Human beings do not have a future in the collectivism of bureaucratic states or in the mass society created by capitalism. Every system, by virtue as much of its abstract nature as of its pretension to totality, is the enemy of life. As a forgotten Spanish poet, José Moreno Villa, put it with melancholy wit: "I have discovered in symmetry the root of much iniquity."
Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone.
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.
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.
A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.
The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature.
Love is not a desire for beauty; it is a yearning for completion.
Light is time thinking about itself.
The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.
The supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, 'Not Yet,' and thus denies us... Whoever builds a house for future happiness builds a prison for the present.
