Joseph Brodsky Quotes

I don't ever want to have to depend on anyone completely.

We should be able to defend ourselves by ourselves.

I'm not a team player. I'm used to having total control over everything I do.

I don't have a boss or PR person, so I'm accountable to no one.

A free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.

People need to learn how to work, learn how to support themselves. I think it's just fine to be eccentric.

Freedon succeeds from the moment people stop looking to others to improve their lives and start taking responsibility.

The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.

Being on my own was liberation, it was liberty, it was freedom, it was responsibility! It was the greatest thing in the world, getting old enough to be on my own. And today we have to deal with the fact that being on your own is so frightening and so scary and makes you feel so vulnerable. I wouldn't be where I am today if I had that attitude, if I had been afraid to be on my own.

I think I'm mostly looking forward to the college life. I'm looking forward to more freedom. Here everything is really structured and scheduled, but in college you've got to be more responsible and you can get things done on your own time. I'm really looking forward to that.

Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it.

I don't have a saviour or a royal family.

I like to make my own mistakes.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

I've often said that the most important thing you can give your children is wings. Because, you're not gonna always be able to bring food to the nest. You're... sometimes... they're gonna have to be able to fly by themselves.

I needed to grow up and do things all adults do. It was time to stop having everything spoon fed to me. It was about being independent.

Every tub must stand upon its bottom.

Independence doesn't mean you decide the way you want.

People are probably going to realize they can live with a lot less government than what they thought they needed.

I don't think anyone has made me except myself. I think I have done it on my own.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

I definitely do things on my terms, it may not seem that way but I actually do.

Foundational autonomy asserts instead that in the most fundamental practical sense, I am my own creator, which means that at the core, I am alone.

For the most part, I get to do what I want to do. If I want to play poker, I can. If I don't want to play poker, I don't have to.

I appreciate individualism.