"The ability to get to a higher level in our life means that we have to generate the energy to be able to do so, and generally, we do that by a fall. Spiritual advances are almost always proceeded by a fall of one kind or another."

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Judge: And what is your occupation in general? Brodsky: Poet, poet-translator. Judge: And who recognized you to be a poet? Who put you in the ranks of poet? Brodsky: No one. And who put me in the ranks of humanity? Judge: Did you study it?...How to be a poet? Did you attempt to finish an insitute of higher learning...where they prepare...teach Brodsky: I did not think that it is given to one by education. Judge: By what then? Brodsky: I think that it is from God.

— Joseph Brodsky