More Quotes by Octavio Paz
The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.
The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature.
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.
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.
What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life
Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. And the supernatural is the supreme otherness. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
Love is not a desire for beauty; it is a yearning for completion.
Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life
By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
Love is born at first sight; the friendship of a frequent and lengthy exchange.
