Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes & Sayings

The highly complex, almost mathematical, nature of music creates for it an ironclad protection against the microbes of dilletantism, which penetrate much more easily into the fields of painting, literature, and the theater. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Even among the ancients the more grown-up knew that the source of right is power, that right is a function of power. So take some scales and put on one side a gram, on the other a ton; on one side "I" and on the other "We," OneState. It's clear, isn't it? - to assert that "I" have certain "rights" with respect to the State is exactly the same as asserting that a gram weighs the same as a ton. That explains the way things are divided up: To the ton go the rights, to the gram the duties. And the natural path from nullity to greatness is this: Forget that you're a gram and feel yourself a millionth part of a ton. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The speed of her tongue is not correctly calculated; the speed per second of her toungue should be slightly less than the speed per second of her thoughts -at any rate not the reverse. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

If [modern artists] hadn't lobbied for endless subsidies, they would have starved or been forced to go to work long ago. Because the ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for 'art' that leaves him unmoved. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Every genuine poet is necessarily a Columbus. America existed for centuries before Columbus but it was only Columbus who was able to track it down. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Final things are for children, because infinity scares children, and it is important that children sleep peacefully at night. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

In order to establish the true value of a function, one must take it to its limits. And it's clear that yesterday's ridiculous "dissolution into the universe," taken to its limits, is death. Because death is exactly that: the ultimate dissolution of my self into the universe. And hence, if "L" signifies love and "D" signifies death, then L=f(D) - that is, love is a function of death. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I stopped and listened. But all I could hear was.. a kind of thudding, and not in me but somewhere near me ... my heart. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is the specialist's task to talk about means, about centimeters. An artist's task is to talk about the goal, about kilometers, thousands of kilometers. The organizing role of art consists of infecting the reader, of arousing him with pathos or irony
the cathode and anode in literature. But irony that is measured in centimeters is pathetic, and centimeter-sized pathos is ridiculous. No one can be carried away by it. To stir the reader, the artist must speak not of means but of ends, of the great goal toward which mankind is moving. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

When we remove the snowdrift piled up over Chekhov in recent years, we uncover a man profoundly agitated by social problems; a writer whose social ideals are the same as those we live by; a philosophy of the divinity of man, of fervent faith in man - the faith that moves mountains. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

To the feudal aristocracy and the aristocracy of the spirit, nobility derives from diametrically opposite sources. The glory of the feudal aristocrat is in being a link in the longest possible chain of ancestors. The glory of the aristocrat of the spirit is in having no ancestors - or having as few as possible. If an artist is his own ancestor, if he has only descendents, he enters history as a genius; if he has few ancestors, or is related to them distantly, he enters history as a talent. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yesterday, there was a Tzar and there were slaves. Today, there is no Tzar, but the slaves are still here. Tomorrow there will be only Tzars. We walk forward in the name of the free man of tomorrow, the Tzar of tomorrow. We have gone through the epoch when the masses were oppressed. We are now going through the epoch when the individual is oppressed in the name of the masses. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Love and hunger rule the world. Ergo, to rule the world, one must master love and hunger. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The myth about the angel who rebelled against his Lord is the most beautiful of all myths, the proudest, the most revolutionary, the most immortal of them all. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is not possible to build on negative emotions. Genuine literature will come only when we replace hatred for man with love for man. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Strange- the barometer is falling, but there's no wind yet, just silence. Up there above, where we can't hear it, it's already begun, the storm. The rainclouds are racing along at full speed. There aren't many of them yet- scattered serrated fragments. It's as though some city had fallen up there and now the pieces of the walls and towers are flying down, the heaps of them grow with horrible rapidity before your eyes, and they come closer and closer, but still have days to fly through blue emptiness before they crash down here to the bottom, with us. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Philosophers of genius, children, and the people are equally wise - because they ask equally foolish questions. Foolish to a civilized man who has a well-furnished European apartment, with an excellent toilet, and a well-furnished dogma. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

You're in bad shape. It looks like you're developing a soul. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is not your fault; you are ill. And the name of your illness is: FANCY. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Freedom and crime are so indissolubly connected to each other, like ... well, like the movement of the aero and its velocity. When the velocity of the aero = 0, it doesn't move; when the freedom of a person = 0, he doesn't commit crime. This is clear. The sole means of ridding man of crime is to rid him of freedom. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

All women are lips, nothing but lips. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

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

The whole of life, in all its complexity and beauty, has been etched into the gold of words. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

But the sky! The sky is blue. Its limpidness is not marred by a single cloud. (How primitive was the taste of the ancients, since their poets were always inspired by these senseless, formless, stupidly rushing accumulations of vapor!) — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I feel myself. But it's only the eye with a lash in it, the swollen finger, the infected tooth that feels itself, is conscious of its own individual being. The healthy eye or finger or tooth doesn't seem to exist. So it's clear, isn't it? Self-consciousness is just a disease. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

O, mighty, divinely delimited wisdom of walls, boundaries! I is perhaps the most magnificent of all inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he build the first wall. Men ceased to be a wild man only when we built the Green Wall, only when, by means of that wall, we isolated our perfect machine world from the irrational, ugly world of trees, birds, and animals ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yesterday was to me like the paper through which chemists filter their solutions: all suspended particles, all that is superfluous remains on this paper. And this morning I went downstairs freshly distilled, transparent. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The phono-lecturer began the description of the recently invented musicometer. ... By merely rotating this handle anyone is enabled to produce about three sonatas per hour. What difficulties our predecessors had in making music! They were able to compose only by bringing themselves to attacks of inspiration, an extinct form of epilepsy. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

By complex ways, by looking deep into the dark well of the human soul, full of filth, somewhere at the very bottom of it Chekhov at last found his faith. And this faith turned out to be faith in man, in the power of human progress. And man became his god. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I looked for it but I found no way out of this wild logical thicket. This was a tangle every bit as unknown and terrifying as that behind the Green Wall These were creatures just as extraordinary and incomprehensible, and they said as much with no words. I imagined that I saw through some kind of thick class the square root of minus one-infinitely huge and at the same time infinitely small, scorpion-shaped, with that hidden but always sensed sting of the minus sign... But maybe that is nothing except my "soul," like the legendary scorpion of the ancients, which would deliberately sting itself with everything that... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

After all, it is clear that the entire history of mankind, insofar as we know it, is the history of transition from nomadic to increasingly settled forms of existence. And does it not follow that the most settled form (ours) is at the same time the most perfect (ours) ? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I never knew it before but now I know - and you, too, know - that laughter may be of different colors, Laughter is but a distant echo of an explosion within us; it may be the echo of a holiday - red, blue, and golden fireworks - or at times it may represent pieces of human flesh exploded into the air. ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers will always be children. So you're right, it's a child's question, just as it should be. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The sun's champagne streamed from one body into another. And there was a couple on the green silk of the grass, covered by a raspberry umbrella. Only their feet and a little bit of lace could be seen. In the magnificent universe beneath the raspberry umbrella, with closed eyes, they drank in the sparkling madness.
'Extra! Extra! Zeppelins over the North Sea at 3 o'clock.'
But under the umbrella, in the raspberry universe, they were immortal. What did it matter that in another far-away universe people would be killing each other? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The knife is the most permanent, the most immortal, the most ingenious of man's creations. The knife was a guillotine; the knife is a universal means of resolving all knots ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

They do not need the sun. Who needs the sun when the eyes glow? Darkness. A woolen fog has wrapped the earth, has dropped a heavy curtain. From far away, from beyond the curtain, comes the sound of drops falling on stone. Far, far away - the autumn, people, tomorrow. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

In adopting the form of the adventure novel, Wells deepened it, raised its intellectual value, and brought into it elements of social philosophy and science. In his own field - though, of course, on a proportionately lesser scale - Wells may be likened to Dostoyevsky, who took the form of the cheap detective novel and infused it with brilliant psychological analysis. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

N-no-o, all that excitement, it wouldn't reach us,' Timosha spoke gloomily. 'We're like the sunken city of Kitezh, living at the bottom of the lake. We do not hear a thing, and the water over us is muddy and sleepy. And on the surface, way above - why, everything's in flames, and the alarms are ringing.' ("A Provincial Tale") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

At night numbers must sleep; it is their duty, just as it is their duty to work in the daytime. Not sleeping at night is a criminal offense. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

... the natural course from nullity to grandeur is to forget that you are a gramme and to feel that you are a millionth part of a ton. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The whole world is one immense woman, and we are in her very womb, we are not yet born, we are joyfully ripening. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

On days like this you can see into the bluest depth of things, their previously unknown, astonishing equations - you see them in even the most familiar everyday thing. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Here I saw, with my own eyes, that laughter was the most terrible weapon: you can kill anything with laughter - even murder itself. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is common knowledge that a well-bred man should as far as possible have no face. That is to say, not so much be completely without one, but rather, should have a face and yet at the same time appear faceless. It should not stand out, just as a shirt made by a good tailor does not stand out. Needless to say, the face of a well-bred man should be exactly like that of other (well-bred) men and of course in no circumstances whatsoever should it alter. Naturally houses, trees, streets, sky and everything else in the world must satisfy the same conditions to have honor of being known as respectable and well-bred. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Don't forget that we lawyers, we're a higher breed of intellect, and so it's our privilege to lie. It's as clear as day. Animals can't even imagine lying: if you were to find yourself among some wild islanders, they too would only speak the truth until they learned about European culture. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

What primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Now, think of a square, a living, beautiful square. And imagine that it must tell you about itself, about its life. You understand, a square would scarcely ever think of telling you that all its four angles are equal: this has become so natural, so ordinary to it that it's simply no longer consciously aware of it. And so with me: I find myself continually in this square's position. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It has never occurred to me before, but this is truly how it is: all of us on earth walk constantly over a seething, scarlet sea of flame, hidden below, in the belly of the earth. We never think of it. But what if the thin crust under our feet should turn into glass and we should suddenly see? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Heretics are the only [bitter] remedy against the entropy of human thought.
("Literature, Revolution, and Entropy") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

We need writers who fear nothing. ("Our Goal") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Every artist of importance creates his own world, with its own laws - creates and shapes it in his own shape and image, and no one else's. This is why it is difficult to fit the artist into a world that has already been created, a seven-day, fixed and solidified world: he will inevitably slip out of the set of laws and paragraphs, he will be a heretic. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Midsummer Night was roasting hot. The shore, of red granite, glowed with the heat; the dark blood of the earth seemed to be rising from below. There was a sharp, unbearable smell of birds, of cod, of green decaying seaweed. Through the mist the huge ruddy sun loomed nearer and nearer. And in the sea, dark blood welled up to meet it - in bloated, rearing, huge white waves.
Night. The mouth of the bay between two cliffs was like a window. A window shutting out curious eyes with a white shade-white woolly fog. And all that you could see was that behind it something red was happening. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

None of us older writers had gone through such a school. We are all self-taught. And, of course, there is always, in such a school, the danger of goose-stepping, uniformed ranks. But the Serapion Brethren have already, it seems to me, outgrown this danger. Each of them has his own individuality and his own handwriting. The common thing they have derived from the studio is the art of writing with ninety-proof ink, the art of eliminating everything that is superfluous, which is, perhaps, more difficult than writing. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturabtion ... whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce
render emotional
his audience, each time. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

How can I describe what effect that ancient, absurd, and wonderful rite has upon me when her lips touch mine? Can I find a formula to express that whirlwind which sweeps out of my soul everything, everything save her? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The auditorium: an enormous half-globe of glass with the sun piercing through. The circular rows of noble, globe-like, closely shaven heads. With joy in my heart I looked around. I believe I was looking in the hope of seeing the rose-colored scythe, the dear lips of O- somewhere among the blue waves of the unifs. Then I saw extraordinarily white, sharp teeth like the ... But no! Tonight at twenty-one o'clock O- was to come to me; therefore my desire to see her was quite natural. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

They say there is a kind of flower that blooms only once a century, Then couldn't there be one that flowers only once every thousand years - or once every ten thousand years? Maybe there are and we just don't know it because today is itself that once-in-a-thousand-year moment. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

The wind blew through the window. The trousers swayed. Doubtless when they were on Mr. Craggs, the trousers looked splendid and went perfectly well together with his body. But like this, isolated in space, Mr. Cragg's trousers were nightmarish.
The wind blew through the window. As they swayed, the trousers were alive. A shot, truncated, square creature consisting entirely of legs, belly and what went with them. And now it would get down and start walking among people and over people and grow and ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

In order to write about the machine you have to know it, to live with it, to love it (or hate it). I think that true writing could be done on industrial subjects by people who work in industry, who are firmly linked with it. But ... and here is the opposite 'but', the technology of literary craftsmanship is itself a very fine and complex matter. Qualified specialists from industry prove themselves dilettantes in the field of literature. The needed synthesis is not yet in sight. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

A knife is the most permanent, the most immortal, the most ingenious of all of man's creations. The knife was a guillotine, the knife is a universal means of resolving all knots, and the path of paradox lies along the blade of the knife--the only path worthy of the mind without fear. . . . — Yevgeny Zamyatin

For one second I stared at her like all the others as something that had dropped out of nowhere: She was no longer a number, she was simply a person; she existed as nothing more than the metaphysical substance of the insult committed against OneState. But then some one of her movements-turning, she twisted her hips to the left-and all at once I knew: I know her, I know that body resilient as a ship-my eyes, my lips, my hands know it-in one moment I was absolutely sure of it. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Let my notes, like the most sensitive seismograph, record the curve of even the most insignificant vibrations of my brain: for it is precisely such vibrations that are sometimes the forewarning of... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox - the single most worthy path of the fearless mind ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

During the first firing a dozen or so numbers from the dock neglected to get out of the way - nothing remained of them except some crumbs and soot. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

And how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one. The number of revolutions is infinite. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

And a question stirred within me: What if he, this yellow-eyed creature, in his disorderly, filthy mound of leaves, in his uncomputed life, is happier than we are? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

We went hand in hand across four lines of avenues. At the corner she was to go right, and I left.
"I'd like so much to come to your place today and let the blinds down. Today-right this minute" said O, and shyly looked up at me with her round crystal-blue eyes.
she's a funny one. But what could I say? She was with me only yesterday, and she knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow. It's just more of her thought getting ahead of itself, like a spark that flies too early in the ignition, which can do some harm at times.
Saying goodbye, I kissed her twice-no, I'll tell the truth-three times on those wonderful blue eyes of hers that not the least little cloud ever troubled. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

If circumstances should make it impossible (temporarily, I hope) for me to be a Russian writer, perhaps I shall be able, like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become for a time an English writer ... ("Letter To Stalin") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

But why is it that within me "I don't want to" and "I want to" stand side by side? That is the chief horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of yesterday. The horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated the logical function, when it becomes evident that that function contains death hidden within it, still I long for it with my lips, my arms, my heart, with every millimeter ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

And everyone must lose his mind, everyone must! The sooner the better! It is essential - I know it. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

We appeal, not to those who reject today in the name of a return to yesterday, not to those who are hopelessly deafened by today; we appeal to those who see the distant tomorrow
and judge today in the name of tomorrow. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Shutting my eyes, I dreamed in formulas. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

What is it to you if I don't want others to want for me, if I want to want myself - if I want the impossible ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

So, take the idea of "rights" and drip some acid on it. Even the most adult of the Ancients knew: the source of a right is power, a right is a function of power. Take two trays of a weighing scale: put a gram on one, and on the other, put a ton. On one side is the "I", on the other is the "WE", the One State. Isn't it clear? Assuming that "I" has the same "rights" compared to the State is exactly the same thing as assuming that a gram can counterbalance a ton. Here is the distribution: a ton has rights, a gram has duties. And this is the natural path from insignificance to greatness: forget that you are a gram, and feel as though you are a millionth part of the ton ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

A human being is like a novel: until the last page you don't know how it will end. Or it wouldn't be worth reading. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

No matter how limited their powers of reason might have been. still they must have understood that living like that was just murder, a capital crime - except it was slow, day-by-day murder. The government (or humanity) could not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time. To kill one man - that is, to subtract 50 years from the sum of all human lives - that was a crime; but to subtract from the sum of all human lives 50,000,000 years - that was not a crime! No, really, isn't it funny? This problem in moral math could be solved in half a minute by any ten-year-old Number today, but they couldn't solve it. All their Kant's together couldn't solve it (because it never occurred to one of their Kant's to construct a system of scientific ethics - that is, one based on subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication). — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Well, fallen angel. Now you're quite ruined," she said, reverting to the formal you. "No, aren't you afraid? Well, goodbye! You'll get back on your own, right? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Now ... what I feel these in my brain is just like ... some kind of foreign body ... like having a very thin little eyelash in your eye. You feel generally okay, but that eye with the last in it-you can't get it off your mind for a second. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction known as happiness? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The literature of the immediate future will inevitably turn away from painting, whether respectably realistic or modern, and from daily life, whether old or the very latest and revolutionary, and turn to artistically realized philosophy. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Sentences of the court on moral issues are always passed in absentia. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

A person is like a novel: Up to the very last page you don't know how it's going to end. Otherwise, there'd be no point in reading ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

They say there are flowers that bloom only once every hundred years. Why shouldn't there be some that bloom only once every thousand, every ten thousand years? Maybe we just haven't heard about them up to now because this very day is that once-in-a-thousand-years. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Ever since he repented of religion and shaved off his clerical beard and mustache, he has had the constant feeling that he has taken off his trousers, and that his nose protrudes altogether indecently and must at all cost be covered. It's sheer torment!
With one hand over his nose, the deacon knocks again and again. No one responds. And yet Martha is home; the gate is locked from within. And that means - what? It means that she is with someone else ... The deacon punctuates the scene inwardly with the three dots we have graphically depicted just above, and, tripping over them at every second step, he proceeds to Rosa Luxemburg Street. ("X") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

But still, how could they write whole libraries about someone like Kant and hardly even notice Taylor-that prophet who could see ten centuries ahead? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It was a remarkable intersection of thoughts. She said almost in the same words the things I had written down before the walk! Do you understand? Even the thoughts! It is because nobody is one, but one of. We are all so much alike - — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It's clear: if there is no good reason for enviousness, the denominator of the fraction of happiness is brought to zero and the fraction is transformed into a glorious infinity. — Yevgeny Zamyatin