Quote

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

Anna Akhmatova

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anna Akhmatova
Age: 76 †
Born: 1889
Born: June 23
Died: 1966
Died: March 5
Author
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Poet
Translator
Writer
Odesa
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko
Anna Achmatova
Anna Ahmatova
Anna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
Song
Russian
Children
Tongue
Great
Fit
Songs
Courage
Pure
Word
Free
Tongues

More quotes by Anna Akhmatova

Image
I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Today I have so much to do: I must kill memory once and for all, I must turn my soul to stone, I must learn to live again. Unless ... Summer's ardent rustling is like a festival outside my window.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
You do not know just what you've been forgiven.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Sweet to me was not the voice of man, But the wind's voice was understood by me. The burdocks and the nettles fed my soul, But I loved the silver willow best of all.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
And it seemed to me that there were fires Flying till dawn without number And I never found out things-those Strange eyes of his-what colour? Everything trembling and singing and Were you my enemy or my friend, Winter was it or summer?
Anna Akhmatova
Image
A land not mine, still forever memorable, the waters of its ocean chill and fresh. Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk, and the air drunk, like wine, late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pinetrees. Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.
Anna Akhmatova
Image
We aged a hundred years, and this happened in a single hour: the short summer had already died, the body of the ploughed plains smoked.
Anna Akhmatova