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The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.

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
State
Rather
States
Consideration
Government
Possibly
Take
Seriously
Jokes
Objects
Serious

More quotes by Joseph Brodsky

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If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.
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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.
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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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Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.
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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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I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.
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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.
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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 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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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.
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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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For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
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Man is what he reads.
Joseph Brodsky
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An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.
Joseph Brodsky
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Who included me among the ranks of the human race?
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For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.
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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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A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.
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.
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How delightful to find a friend in everyone.
Joseph Brodsky