More quotes by Joseph Brodsky
The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity.
A Commencement Address (1984)
It is better to be a total failure in democracy than a martyr or the crème de la crème in tyranny.
As you pour yourself a scotch,
crush a roach, or scratch your crotch,
as your hand adjusts your tie, people die.
He’d be a ruin by now, both physically and mentally. Physically because of the bottle. . . . Mentally because of that mixture of impotence and cynicism that corrodes everyone there — the stronger you are the worse it is.
It is the army that finally makes a citizen of you; without it you still have a chance, however slim, to remain a human being.
Less Than One: Selected Essays (1986)
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