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A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre the realization of it, for destiny.
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
Human
Instruments
Sensation
Humans
Responsible
Gradually
Destiny
Sensations
Poet
Instrument
Poetry
Realization
Taking
Latter
Takeover
Persons
Combination
Takeovers
Person
Former
Timbre
More quotes by Joseph Brodsky
Every life has a file, if you will.
Joseph Brodsky
What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.
Joseph Brodsky
On the whole, love comes with the speed of light separation, with that of sound.
Joseph Brodsky
I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.
Joseph Brodsky
The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
Joseph Brodsky
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
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.
Joseph Brodsky
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
I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.
Joseph Brodsky
It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.
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
Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Even your super weirdo creep cousin.
Joseph Brodsky
If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.
Joseph Brodsky
In Russia, the moment a person opens his mouth you know where he's from. There's the uniformity of experience of an individual in Russia. When you're about 7 years old you get into school and you get put in this factory or this bureaucracy or whatever. The options are computable. Here it's tremendously diverse.
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
Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
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
Man is what he reads.
Joseph Brodsky
I was quite happy in Arkhangelsk.Subsequently, I was sent to a village. I liked it in its own way because it sounded to me very much like the tradition of a hired man in any world-class poem. That's what I was, a hired man. I was working for a collective farm.
Joseph Brodsky
Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
Joseph Brodsky
