Quotes from Joseph Brodsky

One of the worst things that can happen to an artist is to perceive himself as the owner of his art, and art as his tool. A product of the marketplace sensibility, this attitude barely differs on a psychological plane from the patron's view of the artist as a paid employee.

A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around.

On the whole, love comes with the speed of light; separation, with that of sound.

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.

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.

Had we been choosing our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth…. I believe… that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens, to shoot his like in the name of some idea is more problematic than for someone who has read no Dickens.

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.

For aesthetics is the mother of ethics. Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe-not empirically, alas, but only theoretically-that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.

How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

Life-the way it really is-is a battle not between Bad and Good but between Bad and Worse.

No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there-well or poorly.

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?

The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed.

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.

What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even—if you will—eccentricity.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.

What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.

Man is what he reads.

The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.