This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there — the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.

Octavio Paz
About This Quote

The quotation above is a great example of what great poetry can do. The author was very familiar with the world around him. He had experienced so much, yet he could never forget the essence of love. He made love his subject matter, and it became something that everyone could relate to. He writes, "This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there." That's exactly what literature can do.

Source: The Other Voice: Essays On Modern Poetry

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More Quotes By Octavio Paz
  1. Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.
  2. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there — the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
  3. Mineral cactai, quicksilver lizards in the adobe walls, the bird that punctures space, thirst, tedium, clouds of dust, impalpable epiphanies of wind. The pines taught me to talk to myself. In that garden I learnedto send myself off. Later there were no gardens.
  4. Because two bodies, naked and entwined, leap over time, they are invulnerable, nothing can touch them, they return to the source, there is no you, no I, no tomorrow, no yesterday, no names, the truth of twoin a single body, a single soul, oh total...
  5. To reduce poetry to its reflections of historical events and movements would be like reducing the poet's words to their logical or grammatical connotations.
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