
“If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.”
Said to Isaac Glikman, 1936; cited from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 92.
Numa mão sempre a espada, e noutra a pena.
Stanza 79, line 8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto VII
N'uma mão sempre a espada, e n'outra a pena.
"Os Lusíadas, canto VII"
Os Lusíadas (1572)
“If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.”
Said to Isaac Glikman, 1936; cited from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 92.
“I ’ll make thee glorious by my pen,
And famous by my sword.”
My Dear and only Love. Compare: "I ’ll make thee famous by my pen, And glorious by my sword", Sir Walter Scott, Legend of Montrose, chap. xv.
E 76
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)
International Herald Tribune (October 7, 1977)
“I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.”
“The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun”
“The pen worse than the sword.”
Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet.
Section 2, member 4, subsection 4.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I