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We’re all time’s captives, hostages to eternity.

Boris Pasternak

During the last years of Mayakovski’s life, when all poetry had ceased to exist . . . literature had stopped.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Existence Life Literature Poetry Stop
As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Establishment Ignorance Man Myth Power
The whole wide world is a cathedral; I stand inside, the air is calm, And from afar at times there reaches My ear the echo of a psalm.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Calm Myself Reach Religious Stand World
Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Interest Moments Power
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

Blade Creation Poetry Rich Tears
Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Experience Notice People Remark
Salvation lies not in the faithfulness to forms, but in the liberation from them.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Faith Form Liberty Loyalty Lying
We must discover security within ourselves.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Discover Ourselves Security
It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Best Complication Expression Lyrics Poetry Possible Value
All mothers are mothers of great people, and it is not their fault that life later disappoints them.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Disappoint Greatness Life Mom
She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Earth Enchant Herself Magic Wild
If it’s so painful to love and absorb electricity, how much more painful it is to be a woman, to be the electricity, to inspire love.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Deep Electricity Love Pain Woman
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.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Character Force Goodness Myself Revolution Thinking
I have the impression that if he didn’t complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Boredom Complication Death Impression Need
And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Genuine Happiness Life Share
As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Modern Paint Rare Translation Writing

We’re all time’s captives, hostages to eternity.

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We’re all time’s captives, hostages to eternity.

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