Vladimir Mayakovsky Quotes

• Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. lt must be spread everywhere – on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Art, Home, Museums

  "Shrine or Factory?" by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1918.

  98 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Delight, Life Is, This Life

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1965). “Mayakovsky”

  65 Copy quote

• In the church of my heart the choir is on fire

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Heart, Fire, Church

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1965). “Mayakovsky”

  40 Copy quote

• If you wish, I shall grow irreproachably tender: not a man, but a cloud in trousers!

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Men, Clouds, Wish

  "The Cloud in Trousers" (1915) (translation by George Reavey)

  47 Copy quote

• The love boat has crashed against the everyday.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Love, Everyday, Boat

  82 Copy quote

• 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!

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Stars, Mean, Needs

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, “Listen!”

  34 Copy quote

• On the pavement
  of my trampled soul
  the steps of madmen
  weave the prints of rude crude words.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Rude, Soul, Pavement

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1975). “Klop, Stikhi, Poėmy”, p.53, Indiana University Press

  30 Copy quote

• But I,
  from poetry's skies,
  plunge into communism,
  because
  without it
  I feel no love.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Sky, Communism, Plunge

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1975). “Klop, Stikhi, Poėmy”, p.36, Indiana University Press

  29 Copy quote

• I want to be understood by my country, but if I fail to be understood - what then?, I shall pass through my native land to one side, like a shower of slanting rain.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Country, Rain, Land

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1975). “Klop, Stikhi, Poėmy”, p.311, Indiana University Press

  34 Copy quote

• 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?

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Play, Two, Soul

  32 Copy quote

• I understand the power and the alarm of words - Not those that they applaud from theatre-boxes, but those which make coffins break from bearers and on their four oak legs walk right away.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Theatre, Alarms, Coffins

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Sunset, Men, Clouds

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, “A Cloud In Trousers - Epilogue”

  23 Copy quote

• To us love says humming that the heart's stalled motor has begun working again.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Heart, Humming, Motor

  1928 'Letter fromParis to Comrade Kostorov on the Nature of Love' (translated by Samuel Charteris).

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Hurt, Stars, Pain

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1975). “Klop, Stikhi, Poėmy”, p.237, Indiana University Press

  42 Copy quote

• In our language rhyme is a barrel. A barrel of dynamite. The line is a fuse. The line smoulders to the end and explodes; and the town is blown sky-high in a stanza.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Sky, Lines, Towns

  25 Copy quote

• Love's ship has foundered on the rocks of life. We're quits: stupid to draw up a list of mutual sorrows, hurts and pains.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Hurt, Pain, Stupid

  29 Copy quote

• Too slow, the wagons of years,
  The oxen of days--too glum.
  Our god is the god of speed,
  Our heart--our battle-drum.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Heart, Oxen, Years

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1972). “Poems”

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Song, Book, Heart

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, “A Cloud In Trousers - Part II”

  30 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Hair, Voice, Soul

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Dark, Light, Hair

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Hands, Sky, Roaring

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1985). “Селестед Воркс ин Тхрее Волумес: Селестед версе”

  19 Copy quote

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

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Cities, Lines, Rhyme

  10 Copy quote

• Comrade life,
  let us
  march faster,
  March
  faster through what's left
  of the five-year plan.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Years, March, Faster

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1975). “Klop, Stikhi, Poėmy”, p.233, Indiana University Press

  13 Copy quote

• 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?

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Night, Delirium, Bigs

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1985). “Селестед Воркс ин Тхрее Волумес: Селестед версе”

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Horse, Passion, Eye

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (2005). “My Discovery of America”

  19 Copy quote

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