Joseph Brodsky

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

— Joseph Brodsky

#censorship #illiteracy #reading #read

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

— Joseph Brodsky

#human #life #philosophy #wisdom #life

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#business

...and love, as an act, lacks a verb ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#love

How delightful to find a friend in everyone. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#everyone #find #friend #how

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

#every #guide #individual #know #language

After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#better #both #bound #equally #fake

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#exists #form #his #language #only

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

#insignificance #language #lesson #life #most

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state. ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#any #inevitable #language #more #state