Adam Mickiewicz

"And Poland at last proclaimed: "Whoever he be that comes to me, he shall be free and equal, because I am freedom.""

"Ty Boże, ty naturo! dajcie posłuchanie. Godna to was muzyka i godne śpiewanie. Ja mistrz! Ja mistrz wyciągam dłonie! Wyciągam aż w niebiosa i kładę me dłonie Na gwiazdach jak na szklannych harmoniki kręgach."

"Kiedy spojrzę w kometę z całą mocą duszy, Dopóki na nią patrzę, z miejsca się nie ruszy."

"Ja i ojczyzna to jedno. Nazywam się Miljion — bo za milijony Kocham i cierpię katusze."

"Tyran wstał — Herod! — Panie, cała Polska młoda Wydana w ręce Heroda. Co widzę — długie, białe, dróg krzyżowych biegi, Drogi długie — nie dojrzeć — przez puszcze, przez śniegi Wszystkie na północ! tam, tam w kraj daleki, Płyną jak rzeki."

"Będę o to Pana Boga pytać, On to wszystko zapisał, wszystko mnie opowie."

"In spring's own country, where the gardens blow, You faded, tender rose! For hours now past, Like butterflies departing, on you're cast The worms of memories to work you woe."

"Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie; Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił..."

"Sound as a burrow'd marmot he slept On the straw where he'd tumbled fully-dressed that night."

"Basically, this modern Yiddish literature detected and depicted a paradox that casts a sharp light on the situation of Yiddishkeit at the start of the new century: it was a literature of rupture that the rabbis rejected as impious, a literature turned towards the realities of life, towards the world of the underdog, but if it testifies in this way to the earthquakes that were shaking Yiddishland, it did not take flight beyond the linguistic and cultural frontiers of this world and set foot in universal culture. Though very many Jews in Poland were moved by reading Adam Mickiewicz, how many Polish intellectuals between the two wars were aware of Peretz? This literature remained entirely focused on the Yiddish world, its fund of religious mythology, its customs and traditions, a literature that prospered at the heart of the crisis this world was undergoing, for the exclusive use of those who were its direct witnesses or its agents. Curiously, it is only posthumously, one could say, decades after the disappearance in fire and blood of the world from which it arose, that this literature has begun to enter the pantheon of human culture in general, and, paradox of paradoxes, the broad non-Yiddish-speaking public has begun to discover Sholem Aleichem and Shalom Asch by way of Isaac Bashevis Singer."

"Monsters merge and welter through the water's mounting Din. All hands, stand fast! A sailor sprints aloft, Hangs, swelling spider-like, among invisible nets, Surveys his slowly undulating snares, and waits."

"Denn die schönste der Frauen // Ist die Polin zu schauen."