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An unshared happiness is not happiness.

Boris Pasternak

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
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
At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alone Isolation Moments Woman
Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Risk Sacrifice Spiritual Thinking
He realised, more vividly than ever before, that art had two constant, two unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is always thereby creating life.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Death Life Meditation Occupation Realization
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Art Discover Extraordinary Literature People Word
It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Burn Candle Deep Snow World
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

Hate Love Yourself
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

Himself Modern Society Survival Writing
And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Act Circumstance Hope Misfortune Remember
All mothers are mothers of great people, and it is not their fault that life later disappoints them.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Disappoint Greatness Life Mom
That’s metaphysics, my dear fellow. It’s forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won’t take it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Funny Myself Science Stomach
What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Man Power Resist Truth
Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Experience Notice People Remark
I hate everything you say, but not enough to kill you for it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Enough Hate Kill Myself Yourself
We’re all time’s captives, hostages to eternity.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Deep Forever One Liner Prison Time
We must discover security within ourselves.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Discover Ourselves Security
How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alive Hurt Thinking
If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Change Figure Life Principle
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Born Life Live Man Preparation
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
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.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Easy Great Heart Knock Life Missing Moments Yourself
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
He comes as a guest to the feast of existence, and knows that what matters is not how much he inherits but how he behaves at the feast, and what people remember and love him for.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Existence Himself Inheritance Love People Remember
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

Beautiful Fall Myself People Reveal Value Virtue
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

Believe Cruelty Grave Light Spirit Time
How many things in the world deserve our loyalty? Very few indeed. I think one should be loyal to immortality, which is another word for life, a stronger word for it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Deserve Immortal Life Loyalty Strong World

An unshared happiness is not happiness.

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An unshared happiness is not happiness.

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