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Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

Boris Pasternak

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

Earth Freedom Love People Thinking Unique
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
Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Astonish Gratitude Proud Touch
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
How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?
BORIS PASTERNAK

Alive Hurt Thinking
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
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
No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Compassionate Feeling Object Ourselves Strong Victim
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
We must discover security within ourselves.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Discover Ourselves Security
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
The unarmed power of naked truth.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Arm Naked One Liner Power Truth
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
Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.
BORIS PASTERNAK

Love Marriage Sacred Weakness
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

Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

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Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

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Popular Authors

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