Quote

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

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
Sensations
Destiny
Instrument
Poet
Realization
Poetry
Latter
Takeover
Taking
Combination
Takeovers
Persons
Former
Timbre
Person
Instruments
Sensation
Human
Gradually
Humans
Responsible

More quotes by 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
As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.
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
A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
There's nothing as dear as the sight of ruins.
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
Poetry is what is gained in translation.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Man is what he reads.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
Love itself is the most elitist of passions. It acquires its stereoscopic substance and perspective only in the context of culture, for it takes up more place in the mind than it does in bed. Outside of that setting it falls flat into one-dimensional fiction.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
I don't have principles. I have nerves.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
For darkness restores what light cannot repair.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
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
Image
How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.
Joseph Brodsky
Image
The Constitution doesn't mention rain.
Joseph Brodsky