Boris Pasternak Quotes (20 quotations)
1. A corner draft fluttered the flame, and the white fever of temptation, upswept its angel wings that cast , a cruciform shadow. - Boris Pasternak
2. Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John. - Boris Pasternak
3. As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world. - Boris Pasternak
4. Even so, one step from my grave, / I believe that cruelty, spite, / The powers of darkness will in time / Be crushed by the spirit of light. - Boris Pasternak
5. I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies. - Boris Pasternak
6. I have been writing in spurts, bit by bit. It is incredibly difficult. Everything is corroded, broken, dismantled; everything is covered with hardened layers of accumulated insensitivity, deafness, entrenched routine. It is disgusting. - Boris Pasternak
7. I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrified himself. - Boris Pasternak
8. Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed. - Boris Pasternak
9. In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it. - Boris Pasternak
10. In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will. - Boris Pasternak
11. Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it. - Boris Pasternak
12. Our evenings are farewells / Our parties are testaments / So that the secret stream of suffering / May warm the cold of life. - Boris Pasternak
13. Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades. - Boris Pasternak
14. The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what bring you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like teeth in our mouth. It can't be forever violated with impunity. - Boris Pasternak
15. The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman. - Boris Pasternak
16. They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise. - Boris Pasternak
17. What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth. - Boris Pasternak
18. What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup. - Boris Pasternak
19. Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one's stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life. - Boris Pasternak
20. You fall into my arms. / You are the good gift of destruction's path, / When life sickens more than disease / And boldness is the root of beauty- / Which draws us together. - Boris Pasternak
2. Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John. - Boris Pasternak
3. As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world. - Boris Pasternak
4. Even so, one step from my grave, / I believe that cruelty, spite, / The powers of darkness will in time / Be crushed by the spirit of light. - Boris Pasternak
5. I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies. - Boris Pasternak
6. I have been writing in spurts, bit by bit. It is incredibly difficult. Everything is corroded, broken, dismantled; everything is covered with hardened layers of accumulated insensitivity, deafness, entrenched routine. It is disgusting. - Boris Pasternak
7. I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrified himself. - Boris Pasternak
8. Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed. - Boris Pasternak
9. In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it. - Boris Pasternak
10. In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will. - Boris Pasternak
11. Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it. - Boris Pasternak
12. Our evenings are farewells / Our parties are testaments / So that the secret stream of suffering / May warm the cold of life. - Boris Pasternak
13. Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades. - Boris Pasternak
14. The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what bring you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like teeth in our mouth. It can't be forever violated with impunity. - Boris Pasternak
15. The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman. - Boris Pasternak
16. They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise. - Boris Pasternak
17. What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth. - Boris Pasternak
18. What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup. - Boris Pasternak
19. Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one's stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life. - Boris Pasternak
20. You fall into my arms. / You are the good gift of destruction's path, / When life sickens more than disease / And boldness is the root of beauty- / Which draws us together. - Boris Pasternak
