Boris Pasternak Quotes

“An unshared happiness is not happiness.”

“As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.”

“I used to be very revolutionary, but now I think that nothing can be gained by brute force. People must be drawn to good by goodness.”

“In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.”

“It is not the object described that matters, but the light that falls on it.”

“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.”

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.”

“The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.”

“They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.”

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”

“A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to be conscious of one's own digestion is a sure way to upset the stomach. Consciousness is a poison when we apply it to ourselves. Consciousness is a light directed outward. It's like the headlights on a locomotive—turn them inward and you'd have a crash.”

“About dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me it´s just the contrary. Often it´s something you paid no attention to at the time -- a vague thought that you didn´t bother to think out to the end, words spoken without feeling and which passed unnoticed -- these are the things that return at night, clothed in flesh and blood, and they become the subjects of dreams, as if to make up for having been ignored during waking hours.”

“How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?”

“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.”

“I hate everything you say, but not enough to kill you for it.”

“I have the impression that if he didn't complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.”

“It´s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. Is shows he isn´t a type. If he were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can´t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality.”

“Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.”

“Oh, what a love it was, utterly free, unique, like nothing else on earth! Their thoughts were like other people's songs.”

“Only the solitary seek the truth, and they break with all those who don't love it sufficiently.”

“To be a woman is a great adventure;
To drive men mad is a heroic thing.”

“You and I, it's as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”

“You must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.”