Quotes by Osip Mandelstam

“My turn shall also come:I sense the spreading of a wing.”

“Where to start?Everything cracks and shakes,The air trembles with similes,No one world's better than another;the earth moans with metaphors.”

“I do not know how it is elsewhere, but here, in this country, poetry is a healing, life-giving thing, and people have not lost the gift of being able to drink of its inner strength. People can be k...”

“Only in Russia poetry is respected--it gets people killed.”

“One cannot launch a new history the idea is altogether unthinkable; there would not be the continuity and tradition. Tradition cannot be contrived or learned. In its absence one has, at the best, ...”

“The Armenian language cannot be worn out; its boots are stone. Well, certainly, the thick-walled words, the layers of air in the semi-vowels.”

“The people need poetry that will be their own secretTo keep them awake forever,And bathe them in the bright-haired wave of its breathing.”

“The earth is buzzing with metaphor”

“The wolfhound century leaps at my shoulders,But I am no wolf by blood.”

“One cannot launch a new history — the idea is altogether unthinkable; there would not be the continuity and tradition. Tradition cannot be contrived or learned. In its absence one has, at the best,...”

“We live, but we do not feel the land beneath us, Ten steps away and our words cannot be heard.”

“Only in Russia poetry is respected – it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”

“The October Revolution could not but influence my work since it took away my biography, my sense of individual significance. I am grateful to it, however, for once and for all putting an end to my ...”

“Every book should be an incentive to studying the language. Every book should provide at least some contact with the original, for example, a parallel text and a glossary. At present we are struggl...”

“Why can't we shake things up, why can't these good translators be utilized in collective undertakings?”

“As the circulation of translated literature increases, we can observe the growth of interest in language study among the Komsomol masses, among the working youth, and in the colleges. Just how youn...”

“Speed, the pace of the present, cannot be measured by subways or skyscrapers, but only by the cheerful grass thrusting itself forth from under city stones.”

“Apples, bread, potatoes-from now on they will quench not only physical but spiritual hunger.”

“Cultural values ornament the State, endowing it with color, form, and, if you will, even gender. Inscriptions on State buildings, tombs, and gateways insure the State against the ravages of time.”

“The separation of Culture and the State is the most significant event of our revolution.”