When you have those two languages - an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get almost a psychotic sense of humanity that permeates nearly everything. It can help you understand, and it can discourage you, because you see how little can be done.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that knowing both analytic and synthetic languages provides a deep, sometimes overwhelming understanding of humanity.
Joseph Brodsky's quote explores the duality of language and its impact on understanding the human condition. By contrasting analytic languages like English, which emphasize logic and structure, with synthetic languages like Russian, which embody emotional and artistic nuances, he highlights how this combination enriches our perception of humanity. However, this heightened awareness can also be disheartening, as it reveals the limitations of what can be achieved in life and the complexities of existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of multilingualism on perspective, this quote could illustrate the depth gained from diverse language skills.
Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only prompted by the immodesty of the enterprise, but because one is not capable of assessing himself, let alone his work. However, if I were to summarize, my main interest is the nature of time. That's what interests me most of all. What time can do to a man.
One always pulls the trigger out of self-interest and quotes history to avoid responsibility or pangs of conscience.
On the whole, infinity is a fairly palpable aspect of this business of publishing, if only because it extends a dead author's existence beyond the limits he envisioned, or provides a living author with a future he cannot measure. In other words, this business deals with the future which we all prefer to regard as unending.
The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.
Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those - in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed.
To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book, but on the door of his prison cell.
Whoever is not made glorified by taqwa can find no glory.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.
See simplicity in the complicated. Achieve greatness in little things
I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.
Hear this if you can: If you want to reach him You have to go beyond yourself And when you finally arrive at the land of absence Be silent Don’t say a thing Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there
The one who is filled by virtue is like a newborn baby.
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