" Nowadays there are more and more cases of small cardiac haemorrhages. They are not always fatal. Some people get over them. It’s the common illness of our time. I think its causes are chiefly moral. The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Your nervous system isn’t a fiction, it’s a part of your physical body, and your soul exists in space and is inside you, like the teeth in your head. You can`t keep violating it with impunity. …
" All right, I’ll give you my answer. I’ve been thinking something of this sort myself recently, so I can really promise you that there’s going to be a change, I think it’s all going to come right. And quite soon at that. You’ll see. No, quite honestly. Everything is getting better. I have an indescribable, passionate desire to live, and living of course means struggling, going further, higher, striving for perfection and achieving it."
Boris Pasternak, Dr Zhivago p471-2
