Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsLiteratureLanguagePoetWritingBrodskyFormKnowsItalyMenTryingVeniceWellsReadingThinkingArtBookLoveMatterPeople

Famous Joseph Brodsky Quotes

“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.”

StatesFormLiteratureLanguageSocialOrganizationInfiniteAncientReactionsInevitablePermanentIronyIndifferenceTemporaryFiniteRevulsionSocial Organization
Author:Joseph Brodsky
Create image

“It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply the most focused form of the demands on the evolution of the species. It imposes a certain responsibility, moral, ethical and esthetic responsibility, and the species simply doesn't want to oblige.”

WantFormCertainLiteratureDecisionResponsibilityMoralEvolutionDemandInstitutionsFaultsSpeciesFocusedEthicalRelieved
Author:Joseph Brodsky
Create image

“By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan. In other words, it forfeits its own evolutionary potential. For what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. Poetry is not a form of entertainment and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but it is our anthropological, genetic goal. Our evolutionary, linguistic beacon.”

ArtFormPoetryCertainGoalAnimalFailingPoetPoliticianSpeechEntertainmentKingdomsPoetry IsInferiorsDoomSalesmanBeaconsForfeitCharlatansArticulationAnimal Kingdom
Author:Joseph Brodsky
Create image

“As a form of moral insurance, at least, literature is much more dependable than a system of beliefs or a philosophical doctrine. Since there are no laws that can protect us from ourselves, no criminal code is capable of preventing a true crime against literature; though we can condemn the material suppression of literature - the persecution of writers, acts of censorship, the burning of books - we are powerless when it comes to its worst violation: that of not reading the books. For that crime, a person pays with his whole life; if the offender is a nation, it pays with its history.”

IfsPersonsBookWholeFormLawReadingLiteratureBeliefNationsPayMoralWorstCrimeMaterialsProtectCapablePhilosophicalCriminalsWhole LifeDoctrineBurningCodeCensorshipPersecutionPowerlessViolationPreventingSuppressionOffendersDependable
Author:Joseph Brodsky
Create image