The mechanics of love imply some sort of bridge between the sensual and the spiritual, sometimes to the point of deification; the notion of an afterlife is implicit not only in our couplings, but also in our separations.
Interpretation
Love connects both physical and spiritual realms, affecting our perceptions of life and death.
In this quote, Joseph Brodsky explores the profound relationship between love and spiritual connection. He suggests that love serves as a bridge between our physical experiences and our spiritual ideals, transcending mere existence to touch on the divine. This connection influences how we perceive not only our unions with others but also the separations that inevitably occur, implying that both love and loss carry an inherent significance that relates to our understanding of life and an afterlife.
In practice
In a wedding speech, you might say: 'As Joseph Brodsky eloquently pointed out, love transcends the physical and touches the spiritual.'
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.
It's just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn't it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.
We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.
A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.
Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.
Never having been in love, this is going to be a real trick. I think of my parents. The way my father never failed to bring her gifts from the woods. The way my mother's face would light up at the sound of his boots at the door. The way she almost stopped living when he died.
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