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

Joseph Brodsky

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Joseph Brodsky
Age: 55 †
Born: 1940
Born: May 24
Died: 1996
Died: January 25
Author
Dramaturge
Essayist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
St. Petersburg
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky
Belongs
Object
Objects
Attention
Eye
Body
Identifies

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On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
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Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it on the contrary, throw it wide open.
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In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
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My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.
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Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference often expressed by literature toward the state is essentially the reaction of the permanent-better yet, the infinite-against the temporary, against the finite.
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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.
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For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
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When Thomas Mann arrived in California from Germany, they asked him about German literature. And he said, 'German literature is where I am.' It's really a bit grand, but if a German can afford it, I can afford it.
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As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.
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Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
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When the eye fails to find beauty-alias solace-it commands the body to create it, or, failing that, adjusts itself to perceive virtue in ugliness.
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Tragedy, as you know, is always a fait accompli, whereas terror always has to do with anticipation, with man's recognition of hisown negative potential--with his sense of what he is capable of.
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I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.
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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.
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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
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Poetry is what is gained in translation.
Joseph Brodsky
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There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.
Joseph Brodsky
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I didn't want to be either the cre`me de la cre`me or a martyr. I'd rather be a novelty, especially in a democracy that doesn't understand the language I write in.
Joseph Brodsky
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The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
Joseph Brodsky
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Joseph Brodsky