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A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.

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
Language
States
Thing
Inevitable
Ancient
State

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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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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I don't have principles. I have nerves.
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The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
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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.
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I am quite prepared to die here [in NY]. It doesn't matter at all. I don't know better places, or perhaps if I do I am not prepared to make a move.
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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
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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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There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
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In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
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Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Even your super weirdo creep cousin.
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On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
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I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.
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Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection.
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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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What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
Joseph Brodsky
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Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
Joseph Brodsky
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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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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
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Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.
Joseph Brodsky
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Joseph Brodsky