Quote

I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.

Joseph Brodsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Adhered
God
Least
Idea
Spirit
Ideas
Always
Time

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

Image
I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Poetry is what is gained in translation.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
In general, in America, every discourse in literature in 15 minutes degenerates into a conversation about ethics, morality and this and that. The Holocaust and the consequences of it. Well, I find it terribly boring, predictable and unimportant, because what matters about literature is esthetic achievement.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Every life has a file, if you will.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
Joseph Brodsky
Image
I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Bad literature is a form of treason.
Joseph Brodsky