28 Quotes by Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova was a Russian poet who lived from 1889 to 1966. Her poetry explored themes of love, loss, and political oppression, and she was known for her powerful, emotional style. Akhmatova's work was often censored by the Soviet government, and she faced persecution and exile during her lifetime. Despite this, her poetry has endured and is considered some of the most important literature of the 20th century. (Bio)
Anna Akhmatova Quotes
Each of our lives is a Shakespearean drama raised to the thousandth degree (Meaning)
My shadow serves as the friend I crave
You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.
Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
It is unbearably painful for the soul to love silently. (Meaning)
I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love
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.
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.
Call me a sinner, Mock me maliciously: I was your insomnia, I was your grief.
Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.
Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.
Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.
There is a sacred, secret line in loving which attraction and even passion cannot cross.
If I can't have love, if I can't find peace, / Give me a bitter glory.
The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.
Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.
As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.
If you were music I would listen to you ceaselessly And my low spirits would brighten up.
I myself, from the very beginning, Seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium Or a reflection in someone else's mirror, Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. Already I knew the list of crimes That I was destined to commit.
I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house
The secret of secrets is inside me again.
It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.
I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.
I seem to myself, as in a dream, Am accidental guest in this dreadful body.
And you know, I agree to everything: I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy, Darkness will be light and sin lovely.
You do not know just what you've been forgiven.
The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words.
That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.
― Anna Akhmatova Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
