When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism … - Octavio Paz

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People are shuffling by in long coats, with shopping bags and takeout, smoking cigarettes and feigning laughter - filling up their lives with distractions to shut out the chaos.

Octavio Paz

When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings

Criticism, Decay, Firsts, Gangrenous, Result, Social

Same Author Quotes

The Mexican. . . is familiar with death. [He] jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.

Jokes, Mexican, Sleep, Steadfast, Toys

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life

Civilization, Death, Differences, Interplay, Uniformity, Views

Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.

Absolute, Believe, Monster, Thinking, Threat, Truth

Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.

Arrival, Arrivals, Wait, Waiting

The supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, 'Not Yet,' and thus denies us. . . Whoever builds a house for future happiness builds a prison for the present.

Future, Future Happiness, House, Present, Prison, Value