Is it true that Vysotsky is the author of the quote “Even if you are right a thousand times, what’s the point if your woman cries”?

For many years, a phrase attributed to the Soviet artist and poet has been spreading across the Internet. We have verified the correctness of this attribution.

Publications containing this statement signed by Vladimir Vysotsky, over the years appeared V Facebook And Instagram, to "Peekaboo» and other resources. The quote even became the basis for similar phrases, but with others ending.

“Checked” did not find any quotes similar to the one in question in various meetings essays Vysotsky, in the poet’s publications available on the service “Google Books", in many literary studies publications about the poet. At the same time, the authors of many memories And biographies They describe Vysotsky as a rather tough person in some matters, who had a negative attitude towards weak character. In this sense, the viral quote does not quite fit with his image.

Analysis of social networks shows that the quote started attribute Vysotsky in mid-2013, and with such an attribution it quickly spread across the Internet. However, even before that, the phrase had been distributed for some time without attribution - for example, in January of the same year it was posted on the website “Pearls of thought"

Stands apart publication dated February 10, 2013 on the portal “Stihi.ru” - there the quote is included in a poem by the poet Kirill Tabishev:

You will meet her one day. As the sea meets the influx,
Like someone who was blind from birth and became sighted.
You can be endlessly right, but what's the point?
If your woman cries?

At Internet Archive preserved another identical publication by the same author, posted on the same site on August 22, 2011, but subsequently deleted. It is significantly ahead of all other cases in terms of appearance on the Internet.

“Verified” contacted Tabishev, and he confirmed that this is a quote from his old poem, which later began to be attributed to Vysotsky, Bernard Shaw, Omar Khayyam, Paulo Coelho and other people. According to Tabishev, he unwittingly became the conductor of this quote into the “world of naive literature for girls,” and the phrase itself became “the motto of henpecked people.” However, Tabishev adds, now this is of little interest to him, since he has moved away from poetry.

This is far from the only case when someone else’s moral maxims or quasi-philosophical generalizations are attributed to Vysotsky - researcher Artyom Kabankov by 2017 discovered more than 20 similar examples. In his assessment, such statements contribute to the approval and strengthening of the media myth about the poet and turn out to be “consonant with the ethical and aesthetic criteria of the reader, who extremely idealizes the image of Vysotsky, perceiving him as a popularly beloved poet and a moral imperative.”

Cover photo: GoodFon.ru

Incorrect quote attribution

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