Joseph Brodsky

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

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Source: The Balancing Act: Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership. Book by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler and Ron McMillan, 1996.

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Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Poet, Essayist

Joseph Brodsky was a Russian-American poet and Nobel laureate, known for his exploration of themes like love, loss, and exile in his works.

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Joseph Brodsky Poet, Essayist

"Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens."

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Joseph Brodsky Poet, Essayist

"Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets."

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Joseph Brodsky Poet, Essayist

"A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny."

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