quotes from classic

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

Who included me among the ranks of the human race?

more quotes from 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.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

Bad literature is a form of treason.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

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

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

Life - the way it really is - is a battle not between Bad and Good but between Bad and Worse.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

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

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.

more quotes from Joseph Brodsky

Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, like other farmers, flourish and complain.

more quotes from George Crabbe

Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right I've done it from my youth.

more quotes from George Crabbe

Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.

more quotes from George Crabbe

To course that span of consciousness thou'st named The Open Road—thy vision is reclaimed!...

more quotes from Hart Crane

The stars have grooved our eyes with old persuasions Of love and hatred, birth,—surcease of nations . . .

more quotes from Hart Crane

Yet, to the empty trapeze of your flesh, O Magdalene, each comes back to die alone....

more quotes from Hart Crane

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath An embassy.

more quotes from Hart Crane

Then took he the wound, smiling, And died, content.

more quotes from Stephen Crane