Joseph Brodsky Quotes
I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.
Quotes to Explore
-
There is a big divergence between views on a variety of policy issues from fiscal stimulus to financial regulation. It's my hope and my ambition for the economics profession that as we advance our knowledge, that those discussions will narrow in their focus, and that it will help to have more prudent policy-making down the road.
-
There never yet has been a country which became powerful without knowledge. A man by his own strength alone cannot successfully combat a tiger, but by his intelligence, he can devise means to entrap him.
-
You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?
-
The great photographers of life - like Diane Arbus and Walker Evans and Robert Frank - all must have had some special quality: a personality of nurturing and non-judgment that frees the subjects to reveal their most intimate reality. It really is what makes a great photographer, every bit as much as understanding composition and lighting.
-
Making $30,000 on my first business deal was exciting, but not as exciting as the sudden knowledge that I did not have to work for anyone again.
-
The inner reality of love can be recognized only by love.
-
People always talk about the implication and applications of a process, but for me, the goal is purely about knowledge. Knowledge can become practical today, in 20 years, or in 500 years. Ask Newton. He didn't know there would be space research based on his accident with the apple.
-
Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
-
Once you have perfect virtual reality, what else are you supposed to perfect?
-
I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed.
-
I don't really understand what the public perception of me is. I think public perception and reality are two wholly different things.
-
I love listening to songs that are from the heart and that touch the heart. So, love is the preferred theme for most of the songs that I sing.
-
When it comes to inmates, we have boiled them down to just the few things we know about them - their crime, their current life situation, their identification number. But the reality is they were something before they were their crime.
-
It's hard to strike that balance: to tell a kid that life isn't fair, but also recognize and enforce in them the reality that their choices matter.
-
Why do you think the fans like us - why they prefer our street raps over all that phony stuff out there? Because we're telling the real story of what it's like living in places like Compton. We're giving them reality. We're like reporters. We give them the truth.
-
The American War of Independence is the expulsion of the intrusive elements, alien to the American essence. If American reality is the reinvention of itself, whatever is found in any way irreducible or unassimilable is not American.
-
I'm trained in the theater, and acting, for me, is about the imaginative life I create for myself, not about basing it on something real. I think that whatever I create becomes the reality for the audience.
-
You think about the artists I look at as icons, and you assume they were instantly embraced. That's usually not the case. In reality, they had to overcome a lot of noes to get where they wanted to be.
-
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
-
Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.
-
Disassociating, mindfulness, transcendence-whatever the label-it's a sort of loophole in our contract with reality, a form of self-rescue.
-
To do something funny, you have to have experienced it in real life and digested it in a way that amuses you.
-
When I started training to fight, it was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for more things to do. I started with boxing, and my coaches told me I had a lot of potential and that I should consider making it a career. I was like, 'Whatever.' I was just 15 at the time, and I never imagined something like that.
-
I like the idea of isolation. I like the reality of it. You realize what you are... not that the knowledge is inevitably rewarding.
