Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Boris Pasternak


1. "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."
2. "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."
3. “In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it.”
4. "Man is born to live and not to prepare to live."
5. “Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it.”
6. "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."
7. "That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it."
8. “What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.”
9. “You are eternity's hostage. A captive of time.”