It is almost a rule that the more complex a man is, the simpler his billing. A person with a retrospective ability gone rampant often would be called an historian. Similarly, one to whom reality doesn't seem to make sense gets dubbed a philosopher.

Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Ability Almost Complex Gets Gone His Historian Make Man More Often Person Philosopher Rampant Reality Retrospective Rule Seem Sense Similarly Simpler Whom Would

Related Quotes

Beginning a poem, the poet as a rule doesn't know the way it's going to come out, and at times, he is very surprised by the way it turns out, since often it turns out better than he expected; often his thought carries further than he reckoned.

— Joseph Brodsky

BeginningBetterCarries

An ethical man doesn't need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible.

— Joseph Brodsky

ActAgainstAllies

The real biographies of poets are like those of birds, almost identical - their data are in the way they sound. A poet's biography lies in his twists of language, in his meters, rhymes, and metaphors.

— Joseph Brodsky

AlmostBiographiesBiography

Man is what he reads.

— Joseph Brodsky

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.

— Joseph Brodsky