Zbigniew Herbert > Quotes

“Be courageous when the mind deceives you
Be courageous
In the final account only this is important”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“We fall asleep on words / we wake among words”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Selected Poems

“forgive me also that I didn't fight like Lord Byron for the happiness of captive peoples that I watched only risings of the moon and museums”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Report from the Besieged City and Other Poems

“You can be a good painter if you study Cézanne's vision. Whoever dares to copy Van Gogh falls inevitably into the hell of imitators. For this painter didn't care about masterpieces, or even good paintings... but about what is beyond all painting, all art.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Prose, 1948-1998

“I could write a treatise
on the sudden transformation
of life into archaeology”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“Very early on, near the beginning of my writing life, I came to believe that I had to seize on some object outside of literature. Writing as a sylistic exercise seemed barren to me. Poetry as the art of the word made me yawn. I also understood that I couldn't sustain myself very long on the poems of others. I had to go out from myself and literature, look around in the world and lay hold of other spheres of reality.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Prose, 1948-1998

“A craftsman must probe to the very bottom of cruelty.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“when the Lord built the world
he furrowed his brow
calculated calculated calculated
that is why the world is perfect
and uninhabitable

instead the world of the painter
is good
and full of mistakes
the eye wanders
from one color to another
one fruit to another
the eye mumbles
the eye smiles
remembers

the eye says it is bearable
only if one could
enter inside
there where the painter was
without wings
in slippers that fall off
without Virgil
with a cat in the pocket
a benevolent fantasy
and a hand
that unknowingly
corrects the world”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems

“Lord
I thank you for creating the world beautiful and various

and for allowing me in Your fathomless goodness to visit places which were not the sites of my daily torments”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“there's a terrible silence
before a predator's night

sometimes
an absurd airplane
appears in the sky

it throws out leaflets
calling for surrender

I would be happy to surrender
but I've no one to surrender to”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“The dead have need of fairy tales too.”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“ماذا أقول على شاطىء
بحر صغير ميت

يطمر الماء ببطء
آثار أقدامٍ تتلاشى”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“go upright among those who are down on their knees
those with their backs turned those toppled in the dust

you have survived not so that you might live
you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when reason fails you be courageous
in the final reckoning it is the only thing that counts

and your helpless Anger - may it be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“And if the City falls but a single man escapes. He will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile. He will be the City.”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“I do not turn to history to draw from it an easy lesson of hope, but to confront my experience with that of others, to acquire something I might call universal compassion, and also a sense of responsibility, responsibility for the state of my conscience.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Prose, 1948-1998

“A bird is a bird
Slavery means slavery
A knife is a knife
Death remains death”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“So is blurred
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentleman
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
this is the object

we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets

our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“a przecież kupowałem w salonach sztuki
pudry mikstury maście
szminki na szlachetność
przykładałem do oczu marmur zieleń Veronese'a
Mozartem nacierałem uszy
doskonaliłem nozdrza wonią starych książek”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“if we lose the ruins nothing will be left”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“And if the City falls but a single man escapes
He will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile
He will be the City”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“Bądź wierny Idź”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“فى غفلة تخطّيت حافة أسنانها وبلعت لسانها الرشيق. يعيش فى أعماقى الآن، كسمكة يابانية.يمسّ قلبى والحجاب الحاجز كما لو كان يمسّ جدران حوض للسمك. تحرك الطمى من القاع.
تلك التى حرمتُها الصوت تحملق فىّ بعيون واسعة وتنتظر كلمة.
إلا أننى حين أكلمها لا أعرف أى لسان أستخدم- اللسان المسروق أم اللسان الذى يذوب فى فمى من فرط الطيبة.”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“Ta książ­ka ła­god­nie mnie na­po­mi­na nie po­zwa­la
bym zbyt szyb­ko biegł w takt to­czą­cej się fra­zy
każe wró­cić do po­cząt­ku wciąż za­czy­nać od nowa”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“Ubrzo sam shvatio da u meni postoje dva Akropolja, dnevni i noćni. Prvi je bio analitičan, s vodičevom glavom. Provera plana, istraživanje strukture celine, dodirivanje kamenja, zamišljanje onog što je propalo - poput studije anatomije iskopane životinje.


Prvi pokušaji privikavanja, uspostavljanja ličnog odnosa prema spomeniku kulture. "Za sebe" sam izabrao Propileje i Partenon. Zbog njihove energije, mase i reda. Hram Nike je bio suviše filigranski da bih osetio njegovu kamenu materijalnost - pre je na mene ostavljao utisak uspešne kopije, Dobro urađenog zadatka na klasičnu temu. Najteže mi je bilo da uspostavim vezu s Erehtejonom. Portik karijatida ružile su metalne cevi podupirača koji su građevini oduzimali smisao i planiranu lakoću. Same karijatide, ubogaljene i lišene šarma, kao da su se zaustavile na pola puta između ljudskog oblika i stuba. Nad tamnim jezerom starih atinskih kultova ovaj jonski hram kao da govori o nemogućnosti povezivanja drevne vere s novim arhitektonskim izrazom.


Drugi Akropolj - noćni, upaljen na nebu, koji se u celosti prepušta pogledima. Sedao bih na Brdo Muza, kraj samog spomenika Filopapu. Odozdo, iz sirotinjske četvrti Plaka, dopirala je banalna, svakodnevna vreva. U mraku se sjajio kreč belih kuća. U vazduhu se dizao miris ovčetine, maslina i belog luka. Akropolj u vencu mirisa crnog luka. Levo, među drvećem, svake večeri izvođena je predstava 'Son et Lumiere'. Sofoklovi horovi plakali su čas na francuskom, čas na engleskom. Svetlost je iz noći izvlačila fragmente svetog brežuljka. Crveni sjaj reflektora imitirao je požare.


Tada je za mene Akropolj bio skulptura; ne arhitektonski kompleks, već skulptura. Ruinirana južna kolonada Partenona, nisko posečena stabla stubova izazivali su grč u mom srcu. Kamenje se borilo s napadom pustoši.
S estetskog plana Akropolj se u mojoj svesti prebacio na plan istorije. Nisam mogao da ponovim ni uzbuđenje, ni molitve humaniste iz prošlog veka.(...) Akropolj koji mi se nalazio pred očima, sveden na skelet, odran od tela, za mene je istovremeno bio delo volje, reda i haosa, umetnika i istorije, Perikla i Morosinija, Iktinoja i lupeža. I, dodirujući pogledom njegove rane i ožiljke, osetio sam kako se u meni mešaju divljenje i sažaljenje.


Ako sam crpeo posebno osećanje sreće u opasnosti, po svoj prilici to je proisticalo iz svesti o toj neobičnoj činjenici da sam "uspeo da stignem", pre nego što podelimo sudbinu svih ljudskih tvorevina na mračnom poluostrvu vremna, pre nepoznate budućnosti.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Lavirint nad morem

“cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders shrinks
but the defense continues and will last to the end
and even if the City falls and one of us survives
he will carry the City inside him on the roads of exile
he will be the City

we look at the face of hunger the face of fire the face of death
and the worst of them all—the face of treason

and only our dreams have not been humiliated”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“... nuestros ojos reflejan una pregunta
apacible como un espejo
que ya no enmohece el aliento

cada día renuevo mi mirar
cada día va creciendo mi tacto
con el cosquilleo de la cercanía de tantas cosas.”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Poesía completa

“he wanted to understand to the very end

—Pascal's night
—the nature of a diamond
—the melancholy of the prophets
—Achille's wrath
—the madness of those who kill
—the dreams of Mary Stuart
—Neanderthal fear
—the despair of the last Aztecs
—Nietzsche's long death throes
—the joy of the painter of Lascaux
—the rise and fall of an oak
—the rise and fall of Rome”
― Zbigniew Herbert, Report from the Besieged City and Other Poems

“الحصاة
كائن كامل

متوائمة مع ذاتها
واعية لحدودها

مليئة بدقة بمعنى حصوىّ

برائحة لا تذكّر المرء بشىء
لا ترعب أحداً لا تثير رغبة

حرارتها وبرودتها
متعادلتان ومفعمتان بالوقار

أشعر بندم ثقيل
حين تمسك بها يدى
وجسدها النبيل
يخترقه دفء زائف

-لا يمكن تدجين الحصوات
ستنظر إلينا حتى النهاية
بعين هادئة شديدة الصفاء”
― Zbigniew Herbert

“حكاية روسية
كبر أبونا القيصر الصغير وصار عجوزاً، عجوزاً جداً، لدرجة أن ليس بمقدوره الآن خنق حمامة بيديه. وكان متربعاً على عرشه ذهبياً وفاتراً. طالت لحيته فقط، حتى لامست الأرض وأكثر.
تولى الحكم بعد ذلك شخص آخر، لم يكن معروفاً. اختلس أناس فضوليون النظر عبر نوافذ القصر لكن كريفونوسوف حجب النوافذ بمشانق. ولهذا لم يكن بمستطاع أحد رؤية أي شيء سوى المشنوقين.
في النهاية ولحسن الحظ مات أبونا القيصر الصغير. دقت الأجراس طويلاً. ومع ذلك لم يشيعوه. أخذ قيصرنا شكل كرسي العرش. اندمجت قوائم العرش بساقي القيصر تماماً. وصار ذراعه ومسند الكرسي واحداً .كان من المستحيل انتزاعه. وبدفن القيصر مع العرش الذهبي- يا له من عار.
زبيجنيو هربرت”
― Zbigniew Herbert