When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Language lies outside of society because it is its foundation; but it also lies within society because that is the only place… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“There was only one huge world with no back to it A world like a sun One day it broke into tiny… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
By diminishing the value of silence, publicity has also diminished that of language. The two are inseparable: knowing how to speak has… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Today we all speak, if not the same tongue, the same universal language. There is no one center, and time has lost… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“Every text is unique and, at the same time, it is the translation of another text. No text is entirely original because… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“At first I couldn't see anything. I fumbled along the cobblestone street. I lit a cigarette. Suddenly the moon appeared from behind… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Two opposing forces inhabit the poem: one of elevation or up-rooting, which pulls the word from the language: the other of gravity,… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death; the walk with eyes… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink,… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
Changes are inseparable from democracy. To defend democracy is to defend the possibility of change; in turn, changes alone can strengthen democracy. — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
It is not proper to project our feelings onto things or to attribute our own sensations and passions to them. Can it also be… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“I went to the little window and inhaled the country air. One could hear the breathing of the night, feminine, enormous. ("The Blue Bouquet")” — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
A glass pitcher, a wicker basket, a tunic of coarse cloth. Their beauty is inseparable from their function. Handicrafts belong to a world existing… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
“Two bodies face to face Are at times two waves And the night is an ocean. Two bodies face to face Are sometimes two… — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
