"the reality beyond language is not completely reality, a reality that does not speak or say is not reality; and the moment I say that, the moment I write, letter by letter, that a reality stripped of names is not reality, the names evaporate, they are air, they are a sound encased in another sound and in another and another, a murmur, a faint cascade of meanings that fade away to nothingness: the tree that I say is not the tree that I see, tree does not say tree, the tree is beyond its name, a leafy, woody reality: impenetrable, untouchable, a reality beyond signs, immersed in itself, firmly planted in its own reality: I can touch it but I cannot name it, I can set fire to it but if I name it I dissolve it: the tree that is there among the trees is not the tree that I name but a reality that is beyond names, beyond the word reality, it is simply reality just as it is, the abolition of differences and also the abolition of similarities; the tree that I name is not the tree, and the other one, the one that I do not name and that is there, on the other side of my window, its trunk now black and its foliage still inflamed by the setting sun, is not the tree either, but, rather, the inaccessible reality in which it is planted: between the one and the other there appears the single tree of sensation which is the perception of the sensation of tree that is vanishing, but who perceives, who senses, who vanishes as sensations and perceptions vanish?"
— Octavio Paz

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophersPoets from MexicoTranslators from Mexico
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
English (Original)

Sources

Ch. 9

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Octavio_Paz

Revision History

No revisions have been submitted for this quote.

  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Essayists
  4. /
  5. Quote by Octavio Paz

Categories

EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophersPoets from MexicoTranslators from Mexico

Octavio Paz

1914 – 1998

mexikanischer Schriftsteller und Diplomat

47 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Octavio Paz →

Related Quotes

"The Hindu genius is a love for abstraction and, at the same time, a passion for the concrete image. At times It is ri
"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"Merece lo que sueñas."
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes th
"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the pres
"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"To fight evil is to fight ourselves."
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"If you are the amber mare"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"Between going and staying the day wavers,"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"I am a man: little do I last"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"::::We are condemned"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
"And to fill all these white pages that are left for me with the same monotonous question: at what hour do the hours end?"
— Octavio Paz
EssayistsAmbassadorsPhilosophers
HomePopularAdd Quote
Add Quote
HomePopularWorksQuotesAuthorsCATEGORIES
RECENTLY ADDED

Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.

- Gopal Mukund Huddar

Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.

- Gopal Mukund Huddar

Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.

- Gopal Mukund Huddar

I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.

- Gopal Mukund Huddar

By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.

- Gopal Mukund Huddar

CATEGORIES
Novelists From The United States29258Thema28471Academics From The United States273392000s American Films18689Person17672