They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
Boris PasternakRead
What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life's complexities often cannot be captured by simple facts or rules.
This quote by Boris Pasternak suggests that the true essence of life transcends the limitations of structured knowledge and factual information. It implies that while we may have a framework of understanding, the richness and depth of life involve experiences and emotions that go beyond what can be quantitatively measured or ordered.
Themes
TruthLifeExperienceKnowledgeComplexity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the limitations of scientific understanding in explaining human emotions.
More from Boris Pasternak
All quotes βEven 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.
Boris PasternakRead
He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men -- it isn't their fault if life disappoints them later.
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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 PasternakRead
The most extraordinary discoveries are made when the artist is overwhelmed by what he has to say.
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Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!
Boris PasternakRead
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