Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano; March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. He is considered by many as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets of all time...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth31 March 1914
CityMexico City, Mexico
CountryMexico
across cultural distant indian pure time
We twentieth-century Mexicans, even those of pure Indian descent, look on the pre-Columbian world as a world on the other side, not only distant in time but across the cultural divide.
archaic belong centuries distant letting permits picasso places posterity time
Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now.
bridge changes decisive environment man modern nature neutral radical technology throws time work
Technology is neutral and sterile. Now, technology is the nature of modern man; it is our environment and our horizon. Of course, every work of man is a negation of nature, but at the same time, it is a bridge between nature and us. Technology changes nature in a more radical and decisive manner: it throws it out.
divides enter sensation time
Sensation is amphibious: at the same time it joins us to and divides us from things. It is the door through which we enter into things but also through which we come out of them and realize that we are not things.
dread fixed reaching reverse time
We go along, without a fixed itinerary, yet at the same time with an end (what end?) in mind, and with the aim of reaching the end. A search for the end, a dread of the end: the obverse and the reverse of the same act.
footsteps great noises producer time unique
I think we all have our own personality, unique and distinctive, and at the same time, I think that our own unique and distinctive personality blends with the wind, with the footsteps in the street, with the noises around the corner, and with the silence of memory, which is the great producer of ghosts.
artists begin cliches notions seek sincerely time
If contemporary artists sincerely seek to be original, unique, and new, they should begin by disregarding the notions of originality, individuality, and innovation: they are the cliches of our time.
time bits dies
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit.
easily mexican shuns therefore
The Mexican succumbs very easily to sentimental effusions, and therefore he shuns them.
among beings condemned contain discover form metaphors paradoxes unite unless wit
Wit invents; inspiration reveals. The inventions of wit are conceits - metaphors and paradoxes - that discover the secret correspondences that unite beings and things among and with themselves; inspiration is condemned to dissipate its revelations - unless a form can be found to contain them.
century favor freedom man
For a man of my generation, our century has been a long intellectual and political struggle in favor of freedom.
areas discovered discovery invention lies novel unfamiliar unknown value work worlds
To us, the value of a work lies in its newness: the invention of new forms, or a novel combination of old forms, the discovery of unknown worlds or the exploration of unfamiliar areas in worlds already discovered - revelations, surprises.
historical history image mexico period plateau separated surrounded tall truth
The truth is that the history of Mexico is a history in the image of its geography: abrupt and tortuous. Each historical period is like a plateau surrounded by tall mountains and separated from the other plateaus by precipices and divides.
cause ease fact games less minds perverse relations rhetoric twisted
The relations between rhetoric and ethics are disturbing: the ease with which language can be twisted is worrisome, and the fact that our minds accept these perverse games so docilely is no less cause for concern.