Welcome to a treasury of wisdom and insight encapsulated in the eloquent words of Joseph Brodsky, a towering figure in 20th-century literature. As a Nobel laureate in Literature and former Poet Laureate of the United States, Brodsky’s oeuvre brims with profound reflections on life, love, art, and the human condition. His verse, essays, and speeches resonate with a timeless clarity, offering solace, inspiration, and a deeper understanding of the complexities of existence.
Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1940, Brodsky’s journey from a Soviet labor camp to international acclaim illuminates the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of literature. His works, characterized by a masterful command of language and a keen sensitivity to the nuances of emotion, transcend geographical and cultural boundaries, speaking to the universal truths that bind us all. Through his incisive observations and luminous prose, Brodsky invites us to ponder the fundamental questions that shape our lives, urging us to confront the mysteries of existence with courage and curiosity. Below, you’ll find a collection of Joseph Brodsky’s most memorable quotes, each a gem of wisdom waiting to be cherished and shared.
I remember rather little of my life, and what I do remember is of small consequence. Joseph Brodsky
Time can be an enemy or a friend. Joseph Brodsky
On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors – mainly because they occupy a smaller amount of physical space than those who penned them. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust. Joseph Brodsky
To translate poetry, one has to possess some art, at the very least the art of stylistic re-embodiment. Joseph Brodsky
Evil is a sucker for solidity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balanced sheets. Joseph Brodsky
For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language. Joseph Brodsky
I’m no parasite. I’m a poet who will bring honor and glory to his country. Joseph Brodsky
Poetry isn’t just different from prose, it’s more important for the human species. Joseph Brodsky
An ethical man doesn’t need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible. Joseph Brodsky
Bookstores should be located not only on campuses or on main drags, but at the assembly plant’s gates, also. Joseph Brodsky
Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable. Joseph Brodsky
A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around. Joseph Brodsky
I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are… not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding. 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
Because civilizations are finite, in the life of each of them there comes a moment when the center ceases to hold. What keeps them at such times from disintegration is not legions but language. Joseph Brodsky
I belong to the Russian language. As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer’s patriotism is not oaths from a high platform, but how he writes in the language of the people among whom he lives. Joseph Brodsky
With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that’s why the best of them dread the thought of their biographies being written. Joseph Brodsky
Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a ‘read,’ commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself. Joseph Brodsky
I am a patriot, but I must say that English poetry is the richest in the world. Joseph Brodsky
Writers seem mesmerized by the state – the temporal entity. The word ‘perestroika’ is impressed somehow on our minds. But that is not the duty of a writer. Joseph Brodsky
Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family. Joseph Brodsky
I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it’s the best possible combination. Joseph Brodsky
Contrary to popular belief, the outskirts are not where the world ends – they are precisely where it begins to unfurl. Joseph Brodsky
Basically, it’s hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That’s what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man. Joseph Brodsky
It’s a maddening thing in itself to look at an old poem of yours. To translate it is even more maddening. Joseph Brodsky
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. Joseph Brodsky
What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react. Joseph Brodsky
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell. Joseph Brodsky
For a head of state presiding over a ruined economy, an active army with its low wages is god-sent: All he’s got to do is provide it with an objective. Joseph Brodsky
I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is. Joseph Brodsky
I remember myself, age five, sitting on a porch overlooking a very muddy road. The day was rainy. I was wearing rubber boots, yellow – no, not yellow, green – and for all I know, I’m still there. Joseph Brodsky
Literature invents its own rules. Joseph Brodsky
When you have those two languages – an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get almost a psychotic sense of humanity that permeates nearly everything. It can help you understand, and it can discourage you, because you see how little can be done. Joseph Brodsky
My intention is to write poems. That’s what I’ve been doing most of my life. Joseph Brodsky
As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like claiming 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
By and large, prisons are survivable, though hope is indeed what you need least upon entering here; a lump of sugar would be more useful. Joseph Brodsky
American poetry to me is a sort of relentless, nonstop sermon on human autonomy. Joseph Brodsky
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. Joseph Brodsky
Life has a great deal up its sleeve. Joseph Brodsky
The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed. Joseph Brodsky
The unbearableness of the future is easier to face than that of the present if only because human foresight is much more destructive than anything that the future can bring about. Joseph Brodsky
It is almost a rule that the more complex a man is, the simpler his billing. A person with a retrospective ability gone rampant often would be called an historian. Similarly, one to whom reality doesn’t seem to make sense gets dubbed a philosopher. Joseph Brodsky
My idea is simply – is very simple – is that the books of poetry should be published in far greater volume and be distributed in far greater volume, in far more substantial manner. You can sell in supermarkets very cheaply. In paperbacks. You can sell in drugstores. Joseph Brodsky
Paperbacks of those we deem classics should be cheap and sold at supermarkets. Joseph Brodsky
The real biographies of poets are like those of birds, almost identical – their data are in the way they sound. A poet’s biography lies in his twists of language, in his meters, rhymes, and metaphors. Joseph Brodsky
I don’t suppose that I know more about life than anyone of my age, but it seems to me that, in the capacity of an interlocutor, a book is more reliable than a friend or a beloved. Joseph Brodsky
No man-made system is perfect, and the system of oppression is no exception. It is subject to fatigue, to cracks, which you are the likelier to discover the longer your term. Joseph Brodsky
Beginning a poem, the poet as a rule doesn’t know the way it’s going to come out, and at times, he is very surprised by the way it turns out, since often it turns out better than he expected; often his thought carries further than he reckoned. Joseph Brodsky
A person sets out to write a poem for a variety of reasons: to win the heart of his beloved; to express his attitude toward the reality surrounding him, be it a landscape or a state; to capture his state of mind at a given instant; to leave – as he thinks at that moment – a trace on the earth. Joseph Brodsky
The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction. Joseph Brodsky
A writer should care about one thing – the language. To write well – that is his duty. That is his only duty. Joseph Brodsky
Venice is eternity itself. Joseph Brodsky
I started to write when I was eighteen or nineteen. However, until I was about twenty-three, I didn’t take it that seriously. Joseph Brodsky
What makes art in general, and literature in particular, remarkable, what distinguishes them from life, is precisely that they abhor repetition. In everyday life, you can tell the same joke thrice and, thrice getting a laugh, become the life of the party. In art, though, this sort of conduct is called ‘cliche.’ Joseph Brodsky
I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year’s Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. Joseph Brodsky
I was fortunate enough to write about things I really love, and love can be very analytic. Joseph Brodsky
The mechanics of love imply some sort of bridge between the sensual and the spiritual, sometimes to the point of deification; the notion of an afterlife is implicit not only in our couplings, but also in our separations. Joseph Brodsky
Man is what he reads. Joseph Brodsky
A writer is defined by the language in which he writes, and I would stick to that definition. Joseph Brodsky
What provides you with subject matter is your own language – and that’s all. Joseph Brodsky
The career of an esthete was nothing I ever intended. Joseph Brodsky
Translation is not original creation – that is what one must remember. In translation, some loss is inevitable. Joseph Brodsky
What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness. Joseph Brodsky
Reduced… to a crude formula, the Russian tragedy is precisely the tragedy of a society in which literature turned out to be the prerogative of the minority. Joseph Brodsky
To put it mildly, nothing can be turned and worn inside out with greater ease than one’s notion of social justice, public conscience, a better future, etc. Joseph Brodsky
Weaknesses have a certain function in a poem… some strategy in order to pave the reader’s way to the impact of this or that line. Joseph Brodsky
I’m the happiest combination you can think of. I’m a Russian poet, an English essayist, and a citizen of the United States. Joseph Brodsky
I wrote poems. That is my work. I am convinced… I believe that what I wrote will be useful to people not only now but in future generations. Joseph Brodsky
Who included me among the ranks of the human race? Joseph Brodsky
Unfortunately, a human being is able to comprehend only that amount of evil which he is able to commit himself. Joseph Brodsky
Whoever it was who said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than one, for by writing a book, nobody gets younger. Joseph Brodsky
No matter how daring or cautious you may choose to be, in the course of your life, you are bound to come into direct physical contact with what’s known as Evil. I mean here not a property of the gothic novel but, to say the least, a palpable social reality that you in no way can control. Joseph Brodsky
Snobbery? But it’s only a form of despair. Joseph Brodsky
Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language’s own means. Joseph Brodsky
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience. Joseph Brodsky
Bad literature is a form of treason. Joseph Brodsky
Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose. Joseph Brodsky
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
The real history of consciousness starts with one’s first lie. Joseph Brodsky
This is the generation whose first cry of life was the Hungarian uprising. Joseph Brodsky
I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the first grade, not so much because of his political philosophy or practice… but because of his omnipresent images. Joseph Brodsky
The imprisoning of a writer is the same as the burning of a book. Joseph Brodsky
The one who writes a poem writes it above all because verse writing is an extraordinary accelerator of conscience, of thinking, of comprehending the universe. Joseph Brodsky
It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he fears banality worse than anything, and therefore, he uses free verse – though free verse is no guarantee against banality. Joseph Brodsky
I simply loved all my life; loved is too strong a word, but I had a tremendous sentiment, partly conditioned, of course, by the reality of where I grew up, for the spirit of individualism, for the idea of your being on your own in a big way. Joseph Brodsky
The blue-collar is not supposed to read Horace, nor the farmer in his overalls Montale or Marvell. Nor, for that matter, is the politician expected to know by heart Gerard Manley Hopkins or Elizabeth Bishop. This is dumb as well as dangerous. Joseph Brodsky
English is the only interesting thing that’s left in my life. Joseph Brodsky
I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer. Joseph Brodsky
After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism. Joseph Brodsky
A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state. Joseph Brodsky
For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life – the lesson of your utter insignificance. Joseph Brodsky
Prison is, indeed, a translation of your metaphysics, ethics, sense of history and whatnot into the compact terms of your daily deportment. Joseph Brodsky
Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know that we can indulge ourselves in that fashion only so much. In the end, we read not for reading’s sake, but to learn. Joseph Brodsky
One who writes a poem writes it because the language prompts, or simply dictates, the next line. Joseph Brodsky
How delightful to find a friend in everyone. Joseph Brodsky
For some odd reason, the expression ‘death of a poet’ always sounds somewhat more concrete than ‘life of a poet.’ Joseph Brodsky
Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in literature, literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of state. Joseph Brodsky
Americans have been tremendously fortunate in poetry, regarding both the quantity and quality of poetry produced. Unfortunately, it remains in schools and universities; it is not widely distributed. 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
People who buy ‘The National Enquirer’ would buy poetry. They should be given a choice. I’m absolutely serious. Joseph Brodsky
