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The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
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
Starts
Conscious
Consciousness
Lying
History
Firsts
First
Real
More quotes by Joseph Brodsky
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
After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor.
Joseph Brodsky
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
Joseph Brodsky
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
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.
Joseph Brodsky
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.
Joseph Brodsky
If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck.
Joseph Brodsky
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
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
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
For darkness restores what light cannot repair.
Joseph Brodsky
When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
Joseph Brodsky
The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
Joseph Brodsky
An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
Joseph Brodsky
In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
Joseph Brodsky
Bad literature is a form of treason.
Joseph Brodsky
Man is what he reads.
Joseph Brodsky
I don't have principles. I have nerves.
Joseph Brodsky
The Constitution doesn't mention rain.
Joseph Brodsky
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
