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. — Octavio Paz Copy Share Image
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,… — 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 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… — Octavio Paz Copy Share
The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power of consecrating things and endowing them with a sort of eternity; museums are our temples, and the objects displayed in them are beyond history. Politics--or more precisely, Revolution--co-opted the other function of religion: changing human beings… — Octavio Paz Copy Share
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 improper to see in them a guide, a way of life? To learn the art of remaining motionless amid the agitation of the whirlwind, to learn to remain still and to be as transparent as this… — Octavio Paz Copy Share
“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 stillness rocks. All is visible and all elusive, all is near and can't be touched. Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade of their names. Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable… — Octavio Paz Copy Share
“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
