All Osip Mandelstam Quotes
- I love my poor earth because I have seen no other. Earth
- Logic is the kingdom of the unexpected. To think logically means to be continually amazed. Amazed
- Poetry is the plough that turns up time in such a way that the abyssal strata of time, its black earth, appear on the surface. Abyssal
- My turn shall also come: I sense the spreading of a wing. Inspirational
- And I walk out of space Into an overgrown garden of values, And tear up seeming stability And self-comprehension of causes. And your, infinity, textbook… Book
- A raznochinets needs no memory—it is enough for him to tell of the books he has read, and his biography is done. Biographies
- Only in Russia poetry is respected--it gets people killed. Gets People
- Where to start? Everything cracks and shakes, The air trembles with similes, No one world's better than another; the earth moans with metaphors. Air
- I was stopped in the dense Soviet wood by bandits who called themselves my judges. Bandits
- Take from my palms, to soothe your heart, a little honey, a little sun, in obedience to Persephone's bees. You can't untie a boat that… All
- Perhaps the whisper was born before lips, And the leaves in treelessness circled and flew, And those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss,… Acquire
- Perhaps my whisper was already born before my lips. Already Born