Ignacy Domeyko

Ignacy Domeyko

• "I have never felt so bad as now, and it is only to God that I can turn for consolation, strength and deliverance. As I was leaving Poland, I had so many people in this world who loved me like their own child, and I too loved so many people, that I almost forgot about God. But since then all those who loved me so much have died..."

• "I see the whole world open before me; the only place that remains sealed off is Poland, and suddenly I feel the atmosphere so close about me that at times it is difficult to breathe."

• "It is hard to spend one’s fifteenth Easter away from his native country. If throughout the year of an exile's life one constantly feeds on longing as if it were his daily bread, on solemn holidays this longing becomes doubled and I can think of nothing but my country.[...] I tell you that when my native land loomed closer to me than my old age, I did not care about it [...]; today, when I see my old age closer to me than my country, I feel so much the worse for it."

• "I can still feel within me the strength and readiness for hardship and suffering, yet I would like to live long enough to see the day when I might freely work for Poland, and not wander aimlessly through God knows what land.[...] And if death finds me working on alien soil, this too will not be without profit for Poland, particularly if among some distant tribe, the farthest possible from our country, they will remember a Pole, will wish Poland well, and will be supportive toward her."

— from Listy do Władysława Laskowicza (Letters to Władysław Laskowicz), Warsaw, Pax, 1976.

• "How could I forget Polish, when I have always thought in Polish, prayed in Polish, loved in Polish?"

— spoken during a visit to Kraków, Poland, when asked how it was he spoke Polish so well after having spent most of his life in exile.