Quote

A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to be conscious of one's own digestion is a sure way to upset the stomach. Consciousness is a poison when we apply it to ourselves. Consciousness is a light directed outward. it's like the headlights on a locomotive—turn them inward and you'd have a crash.

Boris Pasternak

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Boris Pasternak
Age: 70 †
Born: 1890
Born: February 10
Died: 1960
Died: May 30
Novelist
Pianist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
Moscow
Russian SFSR
Holiwis
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
Like
Consciousness
Apply
Locomotives
Turn
Inward
Headlights
Sure
Stomach
Digestion
Turns
Poison
Insomnia
Fall
Upset
Outward
Light
Attempt
Asleep
Trying
Conscious
Directed
Way
Produce
Crash
Locomotive

More quotes by Boris Pasternak

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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.
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And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?
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Farewell, my great one, my own, farewell, my pride, farewell, my swift, deep, dear river, how I loved your daylong splashing, how I loved to plunge into your cold waves.
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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.
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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.
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... the unarmed power of naked truth.
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What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
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To be a woman is a great adventure To drive men mad is a heroic thing.
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As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.
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Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
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The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
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The last moments slipped by, one by one, irretrievable.
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In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.
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You are eternity's hostage A captive of mine.
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Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.
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As before the collapse, the setting sun brushed the tiles, brought out the warm brown glow on the wallpaper, and hung the shadow of the birch on the wall as if it were a woman's scarf.
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How many things in the world deserve our loyalty? Very few indeed. I think one should be loyal to immortality, which is another word for life, a stronger word for it.
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We're all time's captives, hostages to eternity.
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It is not the object described that matters, but the light that falls on it.
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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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