Unity with the Whole

(Boris Pasternak - found here)

“Ah, that was just what had united them and had made them so akin! Never, never, even in their moments of richest and wildest happiness, were they unaware of a sublime joy in the total design of the universe, a feeling that they themselves were a part of that whole, an element in the beauty of the cosmos.

This unity with the whole was the breath of life to them. And the elevation of man above the rest of nature, the modem coddling and worshipping of man, never appealed to them.

‘The riddle of life, the riddle of death, the enchantment of genius, the enchantment of unadorned beauty — yes, yes, these things were ours [and not the small problems of practical life, like reshaping the planet].’”
~Boris Pasternak (from Dr. Zhivago)