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

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
Worse
Battle
Really
Way
Good
Life

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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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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Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.
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The Constitution doesn't mention rain.
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I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow.
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Robert Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on West-Running Brook.
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The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.
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What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
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In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
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In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.
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The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
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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.
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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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There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.
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I don't have principles. I have nerves.
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When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
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In the end, like the Almighty Himself, we make everything in our image, for want of a more reliable model our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions.
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The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
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There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
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The formula for prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time. This is what really bothers you, that you can't win. Prison is lack of alternatives, and the telescopic predictability of the future is what drives you crazy.
Joseph Brodsky
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Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?
Joseph Brodsky