Zij was nog een meisje, een kind, maar in haar ogen en op haar gezicht kon je de waakzaamheid en de onrust van deze eeuw al aflezen. Alle thema's, al… - Boris Pasternak

Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one’s stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life.

I don't know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism. Everyone is worried only about proving himself in practical matters, and as for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of their infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore the truth. Politics don't appeal to me. I don't like people who don't care about the truth.

February
Boris Pasternak

It's February. Get ink. Weep.
Write the heart out about it, sing
Another song of February
While raucous slush burns black with spring.

Six grivnas* for a buggy ride
Past booming bells, on screaming gears,
Out to a place where drizzles fall
Louder than any ink or tears

Where like a flock of charcoal pears,
A thousand blackbirds, ripped awry
From trees to puddles, knock dry grief
Into the deep end of the eye.

A thaw patch blackens underfoot.
The wind is gutted with a scream.
True verses are the most haphazard,
Rhyming the heart out on a theme.

*Grivna: a unit of currency.