Joseph Brodsky Quotes

In the British embassy in Afghanistan in 2008, an embassy of 350 people, there were only three people who could speak Dari, the main language of Afghanistan, at a decent level. And there was not a single Pashto speaker.

American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows.

He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.

Even when well translated. can we really understand what other cultures are talking about?

Without knowing the language of a people, we never really know their thoughts, their feelings, and their type of character.

In Korean, my lyrics are witty and have twists. But translated into English, it doesn't come over. I've tried writing in English, just for me, but it doesn't work. I've got to know everything about a culture, and I don't.

The barrier of communication is terrible if you don't speak the language. You cannot reach a player with a translator.

Man can only describe God in his own poor language.

If you do not know his language, you will never understand a foreigner's silence.

Languages are fluffy big pillows stuffed between nations - what others say is muffled and nearly lost in them, and when we speak their grammar we get feathers in our mouth. It's worth it. What pleasure to phrase an idea, even in child's words, slowly, and sail it across the gulf in another language to a different-speaking human being!

MEMRI allows an audience far beyond the Arabic-speaking world to observe the wide variety of Arab voices speaking through the media, schoolbooks, and pulpits to their own people. What one hears is often astonishing, sometimes frightening, and always important. Most importantly, it includes the newly-emerging liberal voices of reform and hope, as well as disturbing echoes of ancient hatreds. Without the valuable research of MEMRI, the non-Arabic speaking world would not have this indispensable window.

We are graced with a godlike ability to transcend time and space in our minds but are chained to death.

A foreign country can best be understood through its literature.

The thing that intrigues me about Matthew is that I don't believe anybody would read it if they aren't Jewish and understand it. And so to say that publicly as a Christian is kind of interesting.

The problem with people is that they're only human.

Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power; but if he compare himself with all that he can conceive, he is at the nadir of weakness.

I have known the Indians intimately - known them in their private relations - I think I understand the Indian character pretty well.

How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.

When my brother was a child, he kept telling my mom he wanted to be in the box. She didn't get it - he was two or three years old and kept saying he wanted to be in the box. She finally realized he was talking about the television.

I think it's deeply important for us to know, especially when we come from the outside, how "ordinary people" think and feel and what their expectations are and what their concerns are. Also what's in their imaginations, what's in their minds, even what their rumors are and what their gossip is.

"We speak different languages, as usual," responded Woland, "but this does not change the things we speak about. Well?..."

The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact.

I can understand bitchiness in any language.

the history of melancholia includes all of us.