Vladimir Mayakovsky Quotes

A line is a fuse that's lit. The line smolders, the rhyme explodes— and by a stanza a city is blown to bits.

Listen! If stars are lit It means there is someone who needs it, It means someone wants them to be, That someone deems those specks of spit Magnificent!

If you like I'll be furious flesh elemental, or- changing to tones that the sunset arouses- if you like- I'll be extraordinary gentle, not a man but - a cloud in trousers.

Gentle souls! You play your love on the violin. The crude ones play it on the drums violently. But can you turn yourselves inside out, like me And become just two lips entirely?

On I’ll pass, dragging my huge love behind me. On what feverish night, deliria-ridden, by what Goliaths was I begot – I, so big and by no one needed?

The love boat has crashed against the everyday You and I, we are quits And there is no use listing mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.

But I have tamed myself I have stomped on the throat of my own song

Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. Why bother then To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts. Behold what quiet settles on the world. Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars. In hours like these, one rises to address The ages, history, and all creation.

Love for us is no paradise of arbors — to us love tells us, humming, that the stalled motor of the heart has started to work again.

Our planet is poorly equipped for delight. One must snatch gladness from the days that are. In this life it's not difficult to die. To make life is more difficult by far.

Men, crumpled like bed-sheets in hospitals, And women, battered like overused proverbs.

Formerly I believed books were made like this: a poet came, lightly opened his lips, and the inspired fool burst into song – if you please! But it seems, before they can launch a song, poets must tramp for days with callused feet, and the sluggish fish of the imagination flounders softly in the slush of the heart. And while, with twittering rhymes, they boil a broth of loves and nightingales, the tongueless street merely writhes for lack of something to shout or say

There’s no grandfatherly fondness in me, There are no gray hairs in my soul! Shaking the world with my voice and grinning, I pass you by, - handsome, Twentytwoyearold.

If you prefer, I'll be pure raging meat, or if you prefer, as the sky changes tone, I'll be absolutely tender, not a man, but a cloud in trousers!

Maria! How can I fit a tender word into bulging ears?

حيثما سأموت، سأموت وأنا أغني.

Soon, sampled by everyone, Stale and pallid, I’ll come out And mumble toothlessly That today I’m “Remarkably candid.

It must be a little love, - a baby, sort of, It shies away when the cars honk and hiss, But adores the bells on the horse-tram.

Emotions are steep like cliffs, - please, step away farther. Farther step away, please.

Tomorrow you’ll forget that I have crowned you, that I burned my flowering soul with love, and the whirling carnival of trivial days will ruffle the pages of my books… Would the dry leaves of my words force you to a stop gasping for air? At least let me pave with a parting endearment your retreating path. —Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter),” Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry Of Vladimir Mayakovsky. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform April 18, 2008)

Here's how I used to think you made a book: a poet comes along, mouth half open, inspired, then suddenly the idiot bursts into song - fancy that!

Then there's amortization, the deadliest of all; amortization of the heart and soul.

There’s a monument due me by rank already I’d blow the damn thing up with dynamite So strongly I hate every kind of dead thing So much I adore every kind of life!

Sing, of delight drink deep, Drain spring by cups, not by thimbles. Heart step up your beat! Our breasts be the brass of cymbals.

The attitude of the American to the dollar contains poetry.

Che il tempo esploda dietro di noi come una selva di proiettili. Ai vecchi giorni il vento riporti solo un garbuglio di capelli. Per l'allegria il pianeta nostro è poco attrezzato. Bisogna strappare la gioia ai giorni futuri. In questa vita non è difficile morire. Vivere è di gran lunga più difficile.

You entered, Abrupt like “Take it!”, Mauling suede gloves, you tarried, And said: “You know,- I’m soon getting married.” Get married then. It’s all right, I can handle it. You see - I’m calm, of course! Like the pulse Of a corpse. Remember? You used to say: “Jack London, Money, Love and ardour,”-- I saw one thing only: You were La Gioconda, Which had to be stolen! And someone stole you. Again in love, I shall start gambling, With fire illuminating the arch of my eyebrows. And why not? Sometimes, the homeless ramblers Will seek to find shelter in a burnt down house! You’re mocking me? “You’ve fewer emeralds of madness than a beggar kopecks, there’s no disproving this!” But remember Pompeii came to end thus When somebody teased Vesuvius! Hey! Gentlemen! You care for Sacrilege, Crime And war. But have you seen The frightening terror Of my face When It’s Perfectly calm? And I feel- “I” Is too small to fit me. Someone inside me is getting smothered.

A chestnut-haired child Cheering up, went and stood in his stall. And took the whole incident like a young colt - and to live seemed worthwhile, and to labor, worthy.

أقسم ألا أتحدث بعد الان باللسان المشين للتعقل والحصافة ... الان يمكن للمرء أن ينهض و ينطق , فتتردد كلماتة عبر العصور و التاريخ والبشرية جمعاء

Have you seen a dog lick the hand that thrashed it?!

They stood brow to brow, brown to white, black to black, he supporting her elbows, she playing her limp light fingers over his collarbone, and how he "ladored,"he said, the dark aroma of her hair blending with crushed lily stalks, Turkish cigarettes and the lassitude that comes from "lass." "No, no, don't," she said, I must wash, quick-quick, Ada must wash; but for yet another immortal moment they stood embraced in the hushed avenue, enjoying as they had never enjoyed before, the "happy-forever" feeling at the end of never-ending fairy tales.

Enter with passion, climb into my soul! My heart is now free! I’ve lost all control! In others, I know where the heart had been placed. Everyone knows - it beats in the chest. But even anatomy is absurd in my case one massive heart and no room for the rest.

Я все равно тебя когда-нибудь возьму — одну или вдвоем с Парижем.

He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.

No-one knows what huge suns will illuminate the life of the future. It may be that artists will transform the grey dust of the cities into hundred-coloured rainbows; that the never-ending thunderous music of volcanoes will be turned into the sound of flutes resounding from mountain ranges; that ocean waves will be forced to play on nets of chords...

Usher: Why do you play only on the black keys [of the piano]? I suppose you think black is good enough for the proletariat. You play on all the keys only for the bourgeoisie, is that it? Oleg Bard: Please, citizen, please! I'm concentrating on the white ones! Usher: So you think white is best? Play on both! Oleg Bard: I am playing on both! Usher: So you compromise with [the] Whites, opportunist!

There’s less and less love, and less and less daring, and time is a battering ram against my head. — Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “Conversation With a Tax Collector About Poetry,” The Bedbug and Selected Poetry. (Indiana University Press October 22, 1975) Originally published 1929.

[...] se volete, sarò tenero in modo inappuntabile, non uomo, ma nuvola in calzoni! [...]

Perhaps, from these days, horrifying like the bayonet’s edge, when the centuries bleach my beard silver, only you shall remain unchanged and I, following you from city to city.

Like a tightrope, I’ve stretched out my soul and juggling words, I totter there, baffled.

More and more often, I wonder, - why shouldn’t I place the period of a bullet at the end of my stanza? Today, just in case, I am giving my final, farewell concert.

Let me pave a path with the final tenderness for your footsteps as you depart.

Словото е пълководец на човешката сила.

You think I'm crazy? It's malaria? It happened.

...А мне ни один не радостен звон, кроме звона твоего любимого имени. И в пролет не брошусь, и не выпью яда, и курок не смогу над виском нажать. Надо мною, кроме твоего взгляда, не властно лезвие ни одного ножа.

Lilichka! (Instead of a letter)" Tobacco smoke eats the air away. The room,-- a chapter from Kruchenykh's Inferno. Recall,-- by the window, that day, I caressed you ecstatically, with fervor. Here you sit now, with your heart in iron armor. In a day, you'll scold me perhaps and tell me to leave. Frenzied, the trembling arm in the gloomy parlor will hardly be able to fit the sleeve. I'll rush out and hurl my body into the street,-- distraught, lashed by despair and sadness. There's no need for this, my darling, my sweet. Let's part tonight and end this madness. Either way, my love is an arduous weight, hanging on you wherever you flee. Let me bellow out in the final complaint all of my heartbroken misery. A laboring bull, if he had enough, will leave and find cool water to lie in. But for me, there's no sea except for your love,-- from which even tears won't earn me some quiet. If an elephant wants to relax, he'll lie, pompous, outside in the sun-baked dune, Except for your love, there's no sun in the sky and I don't even know where you are and with whom. If you thus tormented another poet, he would trade in his love for money and fame. But nothing sounds as precious to me as the ringing sound of your darling name. I won't drink poison, or jump to demise, or pull the trigger to take my own life. Except for your eyes, no blade can control me, no sharpened knife. Tomorrow you'll forget that it was I who crowned you, who burned out the blossoming soul with love and the days will form a whirling carnival that will ruffle my manuscripts and lift them above... Will the dry autumn leaves of my sentences cause you to pause, breathing hard? Let me pave a path with the final tenderness for your footsteps as you depart. (1916)

Oleg Bard: I understand, but by virtue of that power of imagination which, according to [Georgi] Plekhanov, is granted to Marxists, I can already see as through a prism, so to speak, the triumph of your class as symbolized by your sublime, ravishing, elegant, and class-conscious wedding!

To his Own Beloved Self The Author Dedicates These Lines" Six. Ponderous. The chimes of a clock. “Render unto Caesar ... render unto God...” But where’s someone like me to dock? Where’11 I find a lair? Were I like the ocean of oceans little, on the tiptoes of waves I’d rise, I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon. Where to find someone to love of my size, the sky too small for her to fit in? Were I poor as a multimillionaire, it’d still be tough. What’s money for the soul? – thief insatiable. The gold of all the Californias isn’t enough for my desires’ riotous horde. I wish I were tongue-tied, like Dante or Petrarch, able to fire a woman’s heart, reduce it to ashes with verse-filled pages! My words and my love form a triumphal arch: through it, in all their splendour, leaving no trace, will pass the inamoratas of all the ages! Were I as quiet as thunder, how I’d wail and whine! One groan of mine would start the world’s crumbling cloister shivering. And if I’d end up by roaring with all of its power of lungs and more – the comets, distressed, would wring their hands and from the sky’s roof leap in a fever. If I were dim as the sun, night I’d drill with the rays of my eyes, and also all by my lonesome, radiant self build up the earth’s shriveled bosom. On I’ll pass, dragging my huge love behind me. On what feverish night, deliria-ridden, by what Goliaths was I begot – I, so big and by no one needed?

Я раньше думал — 
книги делаются так:
 пришел поэт, 
легко разжал уста,
 и сразу запел вдохновенный простак —
 пожалуйста!
 А оказывается —
 прежде чем начнет петься,
 долго ходят, размозолев от брожения, 
и тихо барахтается в тине сердца 
глупая вобла воображения.
 Пока выкипячивают, рифмами пиликая,
 из любвей и соловьев какое-то варево, 
улица корчится безъязыкая — 
ей нечем кричать и разговаривать.

If an American is motoring on his own, he (the paragon of morality and chastity) will slow down and stop beside every solitary pretty female pedestrian, bare his teeth in a big smile, and tempt her into his car with a wild roll of the eyes. A lady who fails to appreciate his passion will qualify as an idiot who doesn’t realise how lucky she is to have the opportunity of getting to know the owner of this 100-horse-power motor car.

Людям страшно - у меня изо рта Шевелит ногами непрожеванный крик.

Я знаю силу слов я знаю слов набат Они не те которым рукоплещут ложи От слов таких срываются гроба шагать четверкою своих дубовых ножек. I know the sway of words, I know their warnings They’re not those applauded from the boxes From words such as these coffins break free Striding forth on their four oaken legs.

Загнанный земной загон, влеку дневное иго я. А на мозгах верхом «Закон», на сердце цепь - «Религия».

Пройду,
 любовищу мою волоча.
 В какой ночи 
бредовой,
 недужной, 
какими Голиафами я зачат -
 такой большой
 и такой ненужный?

Четыре. Тяжелые, как удар. «Кесарево кесарю - богу богово». А такому, как я, ткнуться куда? Где мне уготовано логово?

Я хотел бы жить и умереть в Париже, если 6 не было такой земли — Москва.

A VOCÊS Vocês que passeiam de orgia em orgia, E têm banhos de «waters» bem quentes! Vocês não se envergonham ao lerem nos jornais As citações para a cruz de São Jorge? Sabem vocês, os tacanhos, os muitos, Vocês que pensam só em encher a pança, Se neste mesmo instante não estará uma bomba A arrancar as pernas ao tenente Petrov? E se ele, levado ao matadouro, Conseguisse, do abismo dos ferimentos, Ver-nos, com o beiço a luzir de gordura, Cantando, galhofeiros, versos de Severianine? (1) A vocês, pois, amigos de mulheres e bom trato, Imolar-vos a vida só p’ra vosso prazer? Eu cá por mim antes quero servir Sumos de ananás num bar de putas.

небо осматрели и внутри и наружно. никаких богов ни ангелов не обнаружено.

Yüreğimin kanıyla suluyorum yolu, çiçekler yapışıyor tozuna ceketimin.

There will be! People! On the sun! Soon! VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, “I and Napoleon

Если из меня вытряхнуть прочитанное, что останется?

SO THIS IS HOW I TURNED INTO A DOG ...And when my face stiffened with broom-like mustaches, a mob piled up, tremendous, furious, I got down on all fours and began to bark.

Я зверье еще люблю — у вас зверинцы есть? Пустите к зверю в сторожа. Я люблю зверье. Увидишь собачонку — тут у булочной одна — сплошная плешь, — из себя и то готов достать печенку. Мне не жалко, дорогая, ешь!

Может, может быть, когда-нибудь дорожкой зоологических аллей и она — она зверей любила — тоже ступит в сад, улыбаясь, вот такая, как на карточке в столе. Она красивая — ее, наверно, воскресят.

Где б ни умер, умру поя. В какой трущобе ни лягу, знаю — достоин лежать я с легшими под красным флагом. Но за что ни лечь — смерть есть смерть. Страшно — не любить, ужас — не сметь. За всех — пуля, за всех — нож. А мне когда? А мне-то что ж? В детстве, может, на самом дне, десять найду сносных дней. А то, что другим?! Для меня б этого! Этого нет. Видите — нет его! Верить бы в загробь! Легко прогулку пробную. Стоит только руку протянуть — пуля мигом в жизнь загробную начерти́т гремящий путь. Что мне делать, если я вовсю, всей сердечной мерою, в жизнь сию, сей мир верил, верую.

Не знаю, плачут ли, нет медведи, но если плачут, то именно так. То именно так: без сочувственной фальши скулят, заливаясь ущельной длиной. И именно так их медвежий Бальшин, скуленьем разбужен, ворчит за стеной. Вот так медведи именно могут: недвижно, задравши морду, как те, повыть, извыться и лечь в берлогу, царапая логово в двадцать когтей. Сорвался лист. Обвал. Беспокоит. Винтовки-шишки не грохнули б враз. Ему лишь взмедведиться может такое сквозь слезы и шерсть, бахромящую глаз.

They want to crush you by colonization. Four hundred million are not a herd.

Уже второй. Должно быть, ты легла. В ночи Млечпуть серебряной Окою. Я не спешу, и молниями телеграмм мне незачем тебя будить и беспокоить. Как говорят, инцидент исперчен. Любовная лодка разбилась о быт. С тобой мы в расчете. И не к чему перечень взаимных болей, бед и обид. Ты посмотри, какая в мире тишь. Ночь обложила небо звездной данью. В такие вот часы встаешь и говоришь векам, истории и мирозданью.

Past One O’Clock ... Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. Why bother then To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts. Behold what quiet settles on the world. Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars. In hours like these, one rises to address The ages, history, and all creation. Vladimir Mayakovsky, The Bedbug and selected poetry, translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey. Meridian Books, New York, 1960; Transcribed: by Mitch Abidor. This poem was found among Mayakovsky’s papers after his suicide on April 14, 1930. He had used the middle section, with slight changes, as an epilogue to his suicide note.

Иди сюда, иди на перекресток моих больших и неуклюжих рук. Не хочешь? Оставайся и зимуй, и это оскорбление на общий счет нанижем. Я все равно тебя когда-нибудь возьму – одну или вдвоем с Парижем.

I’ll go meat-mad – and, like the sky, its hues changing – If you want, I’ll be irreproachably tender, not a man, but – a cloud in trousers! —Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “A Cloud in Trousers,” Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition - First Printing edition April 1, 2008) Michael Almereyda (Editor)

Ho urlato che Dio non esiste, e lui ha tratto dal fondo dell’inferno una donna che farebbe tremare una montagna e mi ha comandato: [ amala ] !

io e il mio cuore non siamo mai vissuti fino a maggio, e nella mia vita passata c'è solo il centesimo aprile.

Жизнь стиха - тоже тиха.

দীর্ঘ প্রসারিত পদবিক্ষেপে আমি চূর্ণ করি মাইল মাইল পথ। কোথায় যাব আমি, নিজেকে লুকিয়ে নরকে? অভিশপ্ত নারী, স্বর্গের কোন কামার গড়েছে তোমাকে তার নিজস্ব খেয়ালে? উল্লাস ঝড়ের জন্য রাস্তাগুলো সঙ্কীর্ণ ভাড়ী, উৎসবে শোভাযাত্রা আর মানুষেরা পথে বেরিয়েছে রবিবারের সেরা সাজে-ঠমকে। আমি ভেবেছিলাম, চিন্তাগুলো, অসুস্থ ও ঘনীভূত রক্তের টুকরো, হামাগুড়ি দিয়ে ঝাঁপিয়ে পড়ছে যত আমারই করোটি থেকে।

আমার হৃদয়ের চোর, যে তার সমস্তকিছু ছিনতাই করেছে, যে আমার আত্মাকে পীড়ন করে চিত্তবিভ্রম ঘটিয়েছে, গ্রহণ করো, প্রিয়তমা, এই উপহার-- আর কখনও, হয়তো, আমি অন্যকিছু সম্পর্কে ভাববো না । . এই দিনটিকে উজ্বল ছুটির দিনে রাঙিয়ে দাও । হে ক্রুশবিদ্ধসম ইন্দ্রজাল, তোমার সৃষ্টি বজায় রাখো । যেমনটা দেখছো-- শব্দাবলীর পেরেকগুচ্ছ আমাকে কাগজে গিঁথে দাও ।

Дождь обрыдал тротуары, лужами сжатый жулик, мокрый, лижет улиц забитый булыжником труп, а на седых ресницах — да! — на ресницах морозных сосулек слезы из глаз — да! — из опущенных глаз водосточных труб. Всех пешеходов морда дождя обсосала, а в экипажах лощился за жирным атлетом атлет: лопались люди, проевшись насквозь, и сочилось сквозь трещины сало, мутной рекой с экипажей стекала вместе с иссосанной булкой жевотина старых котлет.

Vladimir Mayakovsky was the Futurist poet Shostakovich had gone to watch when he was a boy. Vsevolod Meyerhold was one of the country’s most famous (or infamous) stage directors.

Πέστε μου που βρίσκεται ένα παλαιοπωλείο; Αγοράζω ένα μαχαίρι. Είναι όμορφο να νιώθεις πως η εκδίκηση πλησιάζει.

And I feel- “I” Is too small to fit me. Someone inside me is getting smothered.