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Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz (1914-1998), full name Octavio Paz Lozano, was a Mexican writer, critic, social philosopher and diplomat. He is knows as literary innovator who incorporated the metaphysical into poetry. His famous works include Labyrinth of Solitude and Postdata. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1977, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1981, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1982, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990.

Wisdom & Quotes

  • Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down; we don't move, today is today, always is today.
- The Endless Instant
  • An artistic style is a living entity, a continuous process of invention. It can never be imposed from without; born of the profoundest tendencies within a society, its direction is to a certain extent unpredictable, in much the same way as the eventual configuration of a tree's branches.
  • Each time we try to express ourselves we have to break with ourselves.
- Labyrinth of Solitude
  • It is the Revolution, the magical word, the word that is going to change everything, that is going to bring us immense delight and quick death.
- Labyrinth of Solitude
  • Death is the mother of forms.
- "Pasado en claro" (A Draft of Shadows)
  • Our civilisation has been founded on the notion of criticism: there is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigour and experimentation, there is no science; without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.
  • Changes are inseparable from democracy. To defend democracy is to defend the possibility of change; in turn, changes alone can strengthen democracy.
- Latin America and Democracy, One Earth, Four or Five Worlds: Reflections on Contemporary History
  • Power immobilises; it freezes with a single gesture - grandiose, terrible, theatrical, or finally, simply monotonous - the variety which is life.

A J Seymour
Daniel Boorstin


Page last modified on Thursday January 26, 2023 18:13:10 GMT-0000