Octavio Paz Quotes

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society. - Octavio Paz

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio Paz

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. - Octavio Paz

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism. - Octavio Paz

We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. - Octavio Paz

To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears. - Octavio Paz

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

The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death. (He) jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love. - Octavio Paz

The electoral process of July 6 perhaps represents a new era in the history of Mexico. - Octavio Paz

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