quote · Legacy record
Whether pleasant or dismal, the past is always a safe territory, if only because it is already experienced, and the species' capacity to revert, to run backward -especially in its thoughts or dreams, since there we are safe as well - is extremely strong in all of us, quite irrespective of the reality we are facing. Yet this machinery has been built into us, not for cherishing or grasping the past (in the end, we don't do either), but more for delaying the arrival of the present - for, in other words, slowing down a bit the passage of time.
Whether pleasant or dismal, the past is always a safe territory, if only because it is already experienced, and the species' capacity to revert, to run backward -especially in its thoughts or dreams, since there we are safe as well - is extremely strong in all of us, quite irrespective of the reality we are facing. Yet this machinery has been built into us, not for cherishing or grasping the past (in the end, we don't do either), but more for delaying the arrival of the present - for, in other words, slowing down a bit the passage of time.
Approximate author period: c. 1956 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Joseph Brodsky
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1956 AD · modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Joseph Brodsky: documented activity in 1956. Wikidata Q862, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q862 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 213844; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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