Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternakwas a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russian, Pasternak's first book of poems, My Sister, Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderon and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 February 1890
CountryRussian Federation
Boris Pasternak quotes about
art philosophy philosophical
I don't like purely philosophical works. I think a little philosophy should be added to life and art by way of seasoning, but to make it one's specialty seems to me as strange as eating nothing but horseradish." - Lara, from Doctor Zhivago
art rays moments
Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.
art two revelations
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.
art moving reading
A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways-by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art. It is the presence of art in Crime and Punishment that moves us deeply rather than the story of Raskolnikov's crime.
art keys joy
Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.
artist discovery overwhelmed
The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
death art creating-life
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.
spiritual art sacrifice
Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.
art people ordinary
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
fear hot pairs
But what are pity, conscience, or fear To the brazen pair, compared With the living sorcery Of their hot embraces?
life simple hypocrisy
I am alone; all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy. To live your life is not as simple as to cross a field.
remember-you remembers-you despair
And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.
real war lying
And when the war broke out, its real horrors, its real dangers, its menace of real death were a blessing compared with the inhuman reign of the lie, and they brought relief because they broke the spell of the dead letter.
war learning two
In this era of world wars, in this atomic age, values have changed. We have learned that we are guests of existence, travelers between two stations. We must discover security within ourselves.