Quotessence
Home / Books / Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago

Book by Boris Pasternak · 3 quotes · Life, Communism, Doctor Zhivago

Filter quotes by topic

AllLifeCommunismDoctor ZhivagoLoveSoviet RussiaArtDr ZhivagoGovernment AbuseHistoriaHistoryIndividualityPoliticsRevolutionRussiaSelfSocietyWinterA Girl From A Different CircleAestheticsAuthoritarianism

Doctor Zhivago Quotes

“It was partly the war, the revolution did the rest. The war was an artificial break in life-- as if life could be put off for a time-- what nonsense! The revolution broke out willy-nilly like a sigh suppressed too long. Everyone was revived, reborn, changed, transformed. You might say that everyone has been through two revolutions-- his own, personal revolution as well as the general one. It seems to me that socialism is the sea, and all these separate streams, these private, individual revolutions, are flowing into it-- the sea of life, the sea of spontaneity. I said life, but I mean life as you see it in a great picture, transformed by genius, creatively enriched. Only now people have decided to experience it not in books and pictures, but in themselves, not as an abstraction but in practice.”

LifeArtBeautyHistoryRevolutionIndividualityRussiaSocialismCommunismRussian RevolutionDoctor Zhivago
Book:Doctor Zhivago
Create image

“Under the old order, which enabled those whose lives were secure to play the fools and eccentrics at the expense of the others while the majority led a wretched existence, it had been only too easy to mistake the foolishness and idleness of a privileged minority for genuine character and originality. But the moment the lower classes had risen, and the privileges of those on top had been abolished, how quickly had those people faded, how unregretfully had they renounced independent ideas--apparently no one had ever had such ideas!”

ClassCommunismMarxismIntellectualismClass Warfare
Book:Doctor Zhivago
Create image

“The rulers of your minds indulge in proverbs, but they've forgotten the main one, that love cannot be forced, and they have a deeply rooted habit of liberating people and making them happy, especially those who haven't asked for it. You probably fancy that there's no better place in the world for me than your camp and your company. I probably should even bless you and thank you for my captivity, for your having liberated me from my family, my son, my home, my work, from everything that's dear to me and that I live by.”

WarReligionPoliticsAuthorityCommunismAuthoritarianismCaptivitySoviet Russia
Book:Doctor Zhivago
Create image