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After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor.

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
Rather
Fervor
Evil
Creed
Nostalgia
Arguments
Creeds
Behalf
Exhausted
Utters
Argument
Ennui

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.
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In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.
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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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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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Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Even your super weirdo creep cousin.
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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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If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet.
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For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
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.
Joseph Brodsky
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I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.
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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.
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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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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.
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Bad literature is a form of treason.
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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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.
Joseph Brodsky
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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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When I'm not writing or reading, I'm thinking about both.
Joseph Brodsky
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Man is what he reads.
Joseph Brodsky
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Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture and the people. They've been stolen from the people and now the stolen things are being returned to their owners, but I don't think their owners should be grateful to receive them.
Joseph Brodsky