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
kings war men
No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.
boldness disease draws fall gift good life root
You fall into my arms. / You are the good gift of destruction's path, / When life sickens more than disease / And boldness is the root of beauty- / Which draws us together.
afterwards died forgotten list number vanished
One day Lara went out and did not come back.... She died or vanished somewhere, forgotten as a nameless number on a list which was afterwards mislaid.
angel cast corner draft fever white wings
A corner draft fluttered the flame, and the white fever of temptation, upswept its angel wings that cast , a cruciform shadow.
abstain awarded given ill meet prize refusal view voluntary
In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will.
believe crushed powers spirit step
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.
man
Man is born to live and not to prepare to live.
inspirational circles shining
Here they are, all in one place. Circle back to them when you need some poetic shine. It is not revolutions and upheavals that clear the road to better days, but revelations, and lavishness of someone's soul inspired, and ablaze.
fear hot pairs
But what are pity, conscience, or fear To the brazen pair, compared With the living sorcery Of their hot embraces?
mean men would-be
It´s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. Is shows he isn´t a type. If he were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can´t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality.
angel flames wings
A corner draft fluttered the flame And the white fever of temptation Upswept its angel wings that cast A cruciform shadow.
life years lasts
During the last years of Mayakovski's life, when all poetry had ceased to exist . . . literature had stopped.
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.