Claire Wolfe watched David Lean’s 1965 film of Dr. Zhivago again the other night, and she posted a couple of favorite quotes—one from Uncle Alex, and the other from the anarchist Kostoyed Amourski. Wonderful lines, both of them. Here’s my favorite, though, from Zhivago’s meeting with a feared Red Army commander. I just wish that they were not so relevant to the daily business of politics in our own time:

Strelnikov: The private life is dead — for a man with any manhood.

Zhivago: I saw some of your manhood at a village called Mink.

Strelnikov: They were selling horses to the Whites.

Zhivago: No. It seems you burned the wrong village.

Strelnikov: They always say that. And what does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burned. The point is made.

Zhivago: Your point. Their village.