“No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries. ”
Boris Pasternak“The poet gives his whole life such a voluntarily steep incline that it is impossible for it to exist in the vertical line of biography where we expect to meet it. It is not to be found under his own name and must be sought under those of others, in the biographical columns of his followers. The more self-contained the individuality from which the life derives, the more collective, without any figurative speaking, is its story.”
Boris Pasternak, Safe Conduct: An Autobiography and Other Writings“In a single wave of meaning the triumphant purity of being.”
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago“But who are we, where do we come fromWhen all those yearsNothing but idle talk is leftAnd we are nowhere in the world?"= MEETING =”
Boris Pasternak, The Poems of Doctor Zhivago“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“I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”
Boris Pasternak“Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.”
Boris Pasternak“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