Giorgos Seferis

Greece
13 Mar 1900 // 20 Sep 1971
Writer, Poeta

Quotes



I mean, in any case, that when you really feel something, you face the difficulty of expressing it. And that, after all, forms your style.
To say what you want to say, you must create another language and nourish it for years with what you have loved, with what you have lost, with what you will never find again.
Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.
Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of all the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.
I am a monotonous and obstinate man who, for twenty years, has not ceased to say the same things over and over again.

Presentation at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1963
In our gradually shrinking world, everyone is in need of all the others. We must look for man wherever we can find him. When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to its riddle was: �Man�. That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy. Let us think of the answer of Oedipus.

Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1963
Poetry has the charm of escaping from the vicious circle of custom.

Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1963
We need to listen to that human voice which we call poetry, that voice which is constantly in danger of being extinguished through lack of love, but is always reborn

Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1963
Poetry is necessary to this modern world in which we are afflicted by fear and disquiet. Poetry has its roots in human breath - and what would we be if our breath were diminished? Poetry is an act of confidence - and who knows whether our unease is not due to a lack of confidence?

Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, 1963
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays