"If it is so painful to love and to be charged with this electric current, how much more painful must it be to a woman and to be the current, and to inspire love."

“I love you madly, irrationally, infinitely.”

“Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Solovyov or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth.”

“The main misfortune, the root of all evil to come, was loss of the confidence in the value of one's own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date of follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people's notions, notions that were crammed down everybody's throat.”

“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.”

“How wonderful to be alive," he thought. "But why does it always hurt?”

“profile and images at the Pasternak Trust”