Joseph Brodsky Quotes

Quotes about:

• The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Blame, Moments, Resolve

  "On Grief And Reason: Essays". Book by Joseph Brodsky, 1995.

  31 Copy quote

• There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Education, Reading, Book

  "The Balancing Act: Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership". Book by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan, 1996.

  62 Copy quote

• Creativity is an unending exercise in uncertainty.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Creativity, Exercise, Unending

  9 Copy quote

• I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out
  which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Dark, Would Be, Figures

  Joseph Brodsky, “I Sit By The Window”

  42 Copy quote

• By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan. In other words, it forfeits its own evolutionary potential. For what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. Poetry is not a form of entertainment and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but it is our anthropological, genetic goal. Our evolutionary, linguistic beacon.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Art, Animal, Goal

  Joseph Brodsky's opening remarks as United States Poet Laureate, October 1991.

  49 Copy quote

• For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Light, Darkness, Criminal Mind

  "Picador New Writing. Vol. 3-4". Book by Drusilla Modjeska, ‎Beth Yahp (p. 13), 1995.

  51 Copy quote

• The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Happiness, Thinking, Evil

  Joseph Brodsky's commencement address at Williams College (1984), as quoted in Robert Inchausti "Thinking through Thomas Merton: Contemplation for Contemporary Times" (p. 110), 2014.

  47 Copy quote

• Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

  Joseph Brodsky

  Battle, Way, Good And Bad

  41 Copy quote

• How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Friendship, People, Delight

  59 Copy quote

• Man is what he reads.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Education, Book, Inspiration

  13 Copy quote

• In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Surface, Faster, Bottom

  Joseph Brodsky (2011). “On Grief And Reason: Essays”, p.115, Penguin UK

  7 Copy quote

• I do not believe in political movements. I believe in personal movement, that movement of the soul when a man who looks at himself is so ashamed that he tries to make some sort of change - within himself, not on the outside.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Change, Believe, Men

  11 Copy quote

• A man should know about himself two or three things: whether he is a coward; whether he is an honest man or given to lies; whether he is an ambitious man. One should define oneself first of all in those terms, and only then in terms of culture, race, creed.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Lying, Men, Race

  "Joseph Brodsky's Art of Darkness". www.washingtonpost.com. October 23, 1987.

  14 Copy quote

• Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those-in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can't escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it no matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Self, Hands, Giving

  "On Grief and Reason: Essays". Book by Joseph Brodsky, 1995.

  10 Copy quote

• Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Grief, Believe, Reading

  60 Copy quote

• The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Eye, Body, Attention

  27 Copy quote

• Poetry is what is gained in translation.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Poetry Is, Translations

  "Raw Material by Derek Mahon - review" by Aingeal Clare, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2012.

  32 Copy quote

• What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Men, Vocabulary, Should Have

  9 Copy quote

• If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one’s drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one’s language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Humility, Perspective, Language

  13 Copy quote

• Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Dirty, Book, Winning

  Joseph Brodsky (2011). “On Grief And Reason: Essays”, p.145, Penguin UK

  30 Copy quote

• For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Attitude, Patriotism, Language

  30 Copy quote

• I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Finding Yourself, Trying, Ridiculous

  "Joseph Brodsky's Art of Darkness". www.washingtonpost.com. October 23, 1987.

  4 Copy quote

• After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Fake People, Life Is Hard, Masters

  Joseph Brodsky, Cynthia L. Haven (2002). “Joseph Brodsky: Conversations”, p.93, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  11 Copy quote

• The Constitution doesn't mention rain.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Rain, Constitution

  4 Copy quote

• What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Beauty, Kings, Cities

  82 Copy quote

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