Alexandr > Alexandr's Quotes

“Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.”
― Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and It's All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“For darkness restores what light cannot repair.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse”
― Joseph Brodsky

“When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.

Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.”
― Joseph Brodsky, Watermark

“It's an abominable fallacy that suffering makes for greater art. Suffering blinds, deafens, ruins, and often kills. Osip Mandelstam was a great poet before the revolution. So was Anna Akhmatova, so was Marina Tsvetaeva. They would have become what they became even if none of the historical events that befell Russia in this century had taken place: because they were gifted. Basically, talent doesn't need history.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“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

“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

“An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.”
― Joseph Brodsky, Watermark

“In the business of writing, what one accumulates is not experience but uncertainties.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Buenas noches.
Don't mind the roaches.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Лапой листать страницы удобнее, чем копытом.”
― Joseph Brodsky