# Anna Akhmatova's best-known lines (with the poem)

"I was with my people then", "If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow" and the glove on the wrong hand: the lines by Anna Akhmatova everyone knows, from her early poems of 1911 to Requiem and Native Land, with the title and year of each poem.

- 63 votes · 13 items
- Nov 30, 2021 · Анастасия
- https://even.best/en/l/5172/anna-akhmatova-s-best-known-lines-with-the-poem

## Top 13

1. **If only you knew from what rubbish / poems grow, knowing no shame.** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — Poem "I have no use for odic hosts…", 1940.
2. **"Only children love like that, / and only the first time."** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Poem "Your palms are burning…", 1915.
3. **If living, then in freedom; / if dying, then at home.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Poem "If living, then in freedom…", 1939.
4. **I was with my people then, / there where my people, unfortunately, were.** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — Requiem, epigraph (1961).
5. **I have a certain smile: / a barely visible movement of the lips.** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — Poem "I have a certain smile…", 1913.
6. **My breast grew so helplessly cold, / but my steps were light. / I pulled the glove for my left hand / onto my right.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Poem "Song of the Last Meeting", 1911.
7. **The strongest thing on earth is sorrow, / and longer-lasting still, the royal word.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Poem "The one whom people once called…", 1945.
8. **I live like a cuckoo in a clock, / I do not envy the birds in the woods.** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Poem "I live like a cuckoo in a clock…", 1911.
9. **I have fun with you when you are drunk: / your stories make no sense.** (1 · ▲3 ▼2) — Poem "I have fun with you when you are drunk…", 1911.
10. **Gasping, I cried: "It was all a joke. / If you go, I will die."** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Poem "I clasped my hands under my dark veil…", 1911.
11. **But we lie down in it and become it, / and that is why we so freely call it ours.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Poem "Native Land", 1961.
12. **And there are no people in the world more tearless, / prouder and simpler than we are.** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Poem "I am not with those who abandoned their land…", 1922.
13. **And we will keep you safe, Russian speech, / great Russian word.** (-1 · ▲2 ▼3) — Poem "Courage", 1942.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.