Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes

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• True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Dreamer

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007). “We”, p.6, Modern Library

  52 Copy quote

• It is an error to divide people into the living and the dead: there are people who are dead-alive, and people who are alive-alive. The dead-alive also write, walk, speak, act. But they make no mistakes; only machines make no mistakes, and they produce only dead things. The alive-alive are constantly in error, in search, in questions, in torment.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Mistake, Writing, Errors

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007). “We”, p.10, Modern Library

  9 Copy quote

• Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Bitterness, Entropy, Remedy

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007). “We”, p.9, Modern Library

  60 Copy quote

• Explosions are not comfortable.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Preparation, Explosions, Comfortable

  7 Copy quote

• You're in bad shape. It looks like you're developing a soul.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Soul, Looks, Shapes

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (1993). “We: New Edition”, p.86, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• I prefer being wrong in my own way to being right in someone else's.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Literature

  12 Copy quote

• Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Two, Choices, Alternatives

  "We". Book by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1921.

  17 Copy quote

• There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Finals, Revolution, Infinite

  Yevgeny Zamyatin “We”, Two-Gunner Pulp Press

  14 Copy quote

• Children are the boldest philosophers. They enter life naked, not covered by the smallest fig leaf of dogma, absolutes, creeds. This is why every question they ask is so absurdly naïve and so frighteningly complex.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Children, Philosophy, Naked

  "On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters" by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Mirra Ginsburg, in "A Soviet Heretic : Essays" by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1970), 1923.

  21 Copy quote

• You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Soul, Way

  Yevgeny Zamyatin “We”, Two-Gunner Pulp Press

  5 Copy quote

• We have lived through the epoch of suppression of the masses; we are living in an epoch of suppression of the individual in the name of the masses; tomorrow will bring the liberation of the individual - in the name of man.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Men

  "A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin". Book edited and translated by Mirra Ginsburg, "Tomorrow" (1919), 1970.

  4 Copy quote

• Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Children, Brave, Philosopher

  5 Copy quote

• If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Growth, Essentials, Literature

  10 Copy quote

• There are books of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite explodes once, whereas a book explodes a thousand times.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Fear, Book, Differences

  11 Copy quote

• All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number. This truth (the only one) is for the strong alone. Weak-nerved minds insist on a finite universe, a last number; they need, in Nietzsche's words, "the crutches of certainty". The weak-nerved lack the strength to include themselves in the dialectic syllogism.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Strong

  8 Copy quote

• Let the answers be wrong, let the philosophy be mistaken - errors are more valuable than truths: truth is of the machine, error is alive; truth reassures, error disturbs.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Philosophy

  "On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters " by Yevgeny Zamyatin. As translated by Mirra Ginsburg, in "A Soviet Heretic : Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin", 1923.

  4 Copy quote

• Knowledge! What does that mean? Your knowledge is nothing but cowardice. No, really, that's all it is. You just want to put a little wall around infinity. And you're afraid to look on the other side of that wall.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Wall, Knowledge, Mean

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (1993). “We: New Edition”, p.52, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Infallibility

  "We". Book by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924.

  5 Copy quote

• A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Reading, Men, People

  18 Copy quote

• There is an excellent way to make predictions without the slightest risk of error: predict the past.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Past

  7 Copy quote

• We comes from God, I from the Devil.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Devil

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (1993). “We: New Edition”, p.115, Penguin

  106 Copy quote

• The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Freedom, Mean, Men

  5 Copy quote

• I am aware of myself. And, of course, the only things that are aware of themselves and conscious of their individuality are irritated eyes, cut fingers, sore teeth. A healthy eye, finger, tooth might as well not even be there. Isn't it clear that individual consciousness is just sickness?

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Eye, Cutting, Healthy

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007). “We”, p.113, Modern Library

  14 Copy quote

• Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Inspirational, Art, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• The most agonising thing is to drop doubt into a man about his being a reality, three-dimensional - and not some other kind of reality.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Reality, Men, Doubt

  5 Copy quote

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