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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

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

Experience Notice People Remark
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.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Heaven Kissing Myself Teaching
In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Death Life Lose Necessary
Mother Russia is on the move, she can’t stand still, she’s restless and can’t find rest, she’s talking and she can’t stop.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Finding Herself Move Stand Stop
Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.
BORIS PASTERNAK

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

Earth Enchant Herself Magic Wild
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
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 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

Art Constant Creation Life Meditation Resemble
It is not the object described that matters, but the light that falls on it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Description Fall Light Object
You are eternity’s hostage A captive of mine.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Forever Myself Prison Yourself
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
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

Discussion Necessary Poetry Simplicity Talk
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

Enough Life Order Truth
Yet the order of the acts is planned And the end of the way inescapable. I am alone; all drowns in the Pharisees’ hypocrisy.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Act End Escape Hypocrisy One Liner Order Planning
To be a woman is a great adventure; To drive men mad is a heroic thing.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Adventure Greatness Hero Madness Woman

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

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

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