Yquotes.com

 

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.
--
Untitled last poem found after his death; translation from Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, p. 235

 

Vladimir Mayakovsky

» Vladimir Mayakovsky - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

"Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a woman love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.”

 

Patrick Rothfuss

 

My coming to England in this way is, as I realize, so unusual that nobody will easily understand it. I was confronted by a very hard decision. I do not think I could have arrived at my final choice unless I had continually kept before my eyes the vision of an endless line of children's coffins with weeping mothers behind them, both English and German, and another line of coffins of mothers with mourning children.

 

Rudolf Hess

 

I would quite like to try my hand at directing although I would do it in the theatre rather than in TV or film. Theatre is more just about telling the story. I understand the way the theatre works. I will leave the TV to the experts. Doctor Who is very complicated to direct. It would be impossible to direct that and act in it as well.

 

David Tennant

 

That I, a funny little gesticulating animal on two legs, should stand beneath the stars and declaim in a passion about my rights — it seems so laughable, so out of all proportion. Much better, like Archimedes, to be killed because of absorption in eternal things...
There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the "intellectual love of God." Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.

 

Bertrand Russell

 

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."

 

Harry Browne