Joseph Brodsky Quotes

American - Poet May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. - Joseph Brodsky

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Joseph Brodsky

Family, Friends And Family, Connections

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction. Joseph Brodsky

History, Art, Poetry, Political, More

Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language. Joseph Brodsky

World, Language, Know, Individual, Poet

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

Life, Small, Game, Win, Book, Life Is A

Good style in prose is always hostage to the precision, speed, and laconic intensity of poetic diction. Joseph Brodsky

Good, Style, Speed, Always, Precision

Venice is eternity itself. Joseph Brodsky

Eternity, Venice, Itself

I'm the happiest combination you can think of. I'm a Russian poet, an English essayist, and a citizen of the United States. Joseph Brodsky

Think, You, Citizen, Poet, English

For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey. Joseph Brodsky

Journey, Poet, Point, Departure, Arrival

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, Man, Soul, Believe, Political

Man is what he reads. - Joseph Brodsky

Man is what he reads. Joseph Brodsky

Education, Man, He, Reads

Top 10
Joseph Brodsky
Quotes

What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called 'cliche.' Joseph Brodsky

Life, Art, You, Laugh, Repetition, Party

I remember myself, age five, sitting on a porch overlooking a very muddy road. The day was rainy. I was wearing rubber boots, yellow - no, not yellow, green - and for all I know, I'm still there. Joseph Brodsky

Age, Day, Myself, Yellow, Green, Road

The concept of historical necessity is the product of rational thought and arrived in Russia by the Western route. The idea of the noble savage, of an inherently good human nature hampered by bad institutions, of the ideal state, of social justice and so forth - none of these originated or blossomed on the banks of the Volga. Joseph Brodsky

Nature, Good, Justice, Thought, Bad

A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave - as he thinks at that moment - a trace on the earth. Joseph Brodsky

Heart, Attitude, Moment, Mind, Win, Him

For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life - the lesson of your utter insignificance. Joseph Brodsky

Life, Time, Language, Boredom, You, Your

To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell. Joseph Brodsky

Prison, Name, Door, Language, Book

To put it mildly, nothing can be turned and worn inside out with greater ease than one's notion of social justice, public conscience, a better future, etc. Joseph Brodsky

Future, Justice, Better, Conscience, Out

It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything. Joseph Brodsky

Education, Everything, Something, Well

How delightful to find a friend in everyone. Joseph Brodsky

Friendship, Friend, Find, Everyone, How

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie. Joseph Brodsky

History, Lie, Consciousness, Real, First

This assumption that the blue collar crowd is not supposed to read it, or a farmer in his overalls is not to read poetry, seems to be dangerous if not tragic. Joseph Brodsky

Blue, Poetry, Farmer, Dangerous, Crowd

Whether by theft or by artistry or by conquest, when it comes to time, Venetians are the world's greatest experts. They bested time like no one else. Joseph Brodsky

Time, World, Greatest, Like, Theft, Else

I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination. Joseph Brodsky

Best, I Am, Think, American, Literature

Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man. Joseph Brodsky

Work, Nature, Time, Alone, Man, Myself

I'm no parasite. I'm a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country. Joseph Brodsky

Honor, Country, Will, Glory, Poet, Bring

Who included me among the ranks of the human race? - Joseph Brodsky

Who included me among the ranks of the human race? Joseph Brodsky

Funny, Me, Race, Human, Human Race, Who

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