Zamyatin Quotes & Sayings

Revolution is everywhere, in everything. There is no final revolution, no final number. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

You're afraid of it because it's stronger than you, you hate it because you're afraid of it, you love it because you can't master it. You can only love something that refuses to be mastered. — 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

It's clear that you want to seem original. But is it possible that you - ?" "It is clear," interrupted I-330, "that to be original means to stand out among others; consequently, to be original means to violate the law of equality. What was called in the language of the ancients 'to be common' is with us only the fulfilling of one's duty. For - — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Dogma, static positions, consonance - all these are obstacles to catching the disease of art, at least in its more complex forms. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Why? But why don't we have feathers? Or Wings? Nothing but the shoulder blades where wings would be attached? Why, because we no longer need wings. We've got aeros. Wings would only be in the way. Wings are for flying, but we have nowhere to fly to, we've already flown there, we've found it. — 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

This particular May morning begins with the appearance of a procession on the corner of Pancake and Rosa Luxemburg Streets. The procession is evidently religious: it consists of eight clerical personages, well known to the entire town. But instead of censers, the clerical personages are swinging brooms, which transfers the entire action from the plane of religion to the plane of revolution. These personages are now simply unproductive elements of society performing their labor duty for the benefit of the people. Instead of prayers, golden clouds of dust rise to the heavens. ("X") — 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

You will place the benevolent yoke of reason on the necks of the unknown beings on other planets, who may still be living in that primitive state known as freedom. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words. — 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

If the speed of an aero equals zero, the aero is motionless; if human liberty is equal to zero, man does not commit any crime. That is clear. The way to rid man of criminality is to rid him of freedom. — 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

If you try to follow the language of thought in your own mind, you will not find even the simplest sentences- only shreds, fragments of sentences, scattered as after an explosion, have greater effect on the reader than the same thoughts and images arranged in regular, steady, marching ranks? ... because you meet the reader's natural instinctive need. You do not compel him to skim — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating - a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that'll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist.
Well, of course, it's clear that you can't establish a function without taking into account what its limit is. And it's also clear that what I felt yesterday, that stupid "dissolving in the universe," if you take it to its limit, is death. Because that's exactly what death is - the fullest possible dissolving of myself into the universe. Hence, if we let L stand for love and D for death, then L = f (D), i.e., love and death ... — 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

How do you know nonsense isn't a good thing? if human nonsense had been nurtured and developed for centuries, just as intelligence has, then perhaps something extraordinarily previous could have come from it. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Now I no longer live in our clear, rational world; I live in the ancient nightmare world, the world of square roots of minus one. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Everyone has to go mad, it's essential fir everyone to go mad - as soon as possible! It's essential - I know. — 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, inevitably, like the iron and the magnet with sweet obedience to their precise, immutable laws, I poured myself into her. There was no pink ticket, there were no calculations, there was no One State, there was no me. There were only gentle, sharp, clenched teeth and there were gold eyes thrown wide open to me- and through them I slowly went inside, deeper and deeper still. And silence- except in the corner, thousands of miles away, where drops were dripping into the sink. I was the universe, and eras and epochs passed as drop followed drop ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Besides, I can't, I no longer have the strength to destroy this painful piece of myself, which might turn out to be the piece I value most. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

In the widely open cup of the armchair was I-330. I, on the floor, embracing her limbs, my head on her lap. We were silent. Everything was silent. Only the pulse was audible. Like a crystal I was dissolving in her, in I-330. I felt most distinctly how the polished facets which limited me in space were slowly thawing, melting away. I was dissolving in her lap, in her, and I became at once smaller and larger, and larger, unembraceable. For she was not she but the whole universe. For a second I and that armchair near the bed, transfixed with joy, we were one. — 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

The inner world: those spiritual apartments to which we are reluctant to admit strangers. — 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

We live behind our transparent walls that seem woven of gleaming air - we are always visible, always washed in light. We have nothing to hide from one another. Besides, this makes much easier the burdensome and noble task of the Guardians, for, Who knows what might happen otherwise? Perhaps it was precisely those bizarre, opaque dwellings of the ancients that gave rise to their psychology of individuality. — 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

Accentuated plainness and accentuated vice ought to bring about harmony. Beauty lies in harmony, in style, whether it be the harmony of ugliness or beauty, vice or virtue. — 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

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

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

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

We comes from God, I from the Devil. — 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

Cruel', O'Kelly laughed, 'it's cruel to tell children the truth. If anything convinces me of God's mercy, then it's his gift of making us unable to lie. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Listen." I tugged at my neighbor. "Just listen to me! You must-you must give me an answer: out there, where your finite universe ends! What is out there, beyond it? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Then you love it. For if you fear it because it is stronger than you, hate it because you fear it, you love it. For you cannot subject it to yourself. One loves only the things one cannot conquer. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

She moved nearer, leaned her shoulder against me - and we were one, and something flowed from her into me, and I knew: this is how it must be. I knew it with every nerve, and every hair, every heartbeat, so sweet it verged on pain. And what joy to submit to this 'must'. A piece of iron must feel such joy as it submits to the precise, inevitable law that draws it to a magnet. Or a stone, thrown up, hesitating a moment, then plunging headlong back to earth. Or a man, after the final agony, taking a last deep breath - and dying. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North") — 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

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

O-90 sat over the notebook, her head leaning toward her left shoulder, and making such an effort that her tongue was pushing her left cheek out. She looked like such a child, so charming. And so I felt good all over, clear, simple ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The moon hangs alien, heavy, like a lock on a door; the door is tightly shut. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

There were two in paradise and the choice was offered to them: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

I was born with the wrong sign In the wrong house With the wrong ascendancy I took the wrong road That led to the wrong tendencies I was in the wrong place at the wrong time For the wrong reason and the wrong rhyme On the wrong day of the wrong week I used the wrong method with the wrong technique Wrong — 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

Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Gripped with bitter cold, ice-locked, Petersburg burned in delirium. One knew: out there, invisible behind the curtain of fog, the red and yellow columns, spires, and hoary gates and fences crept on tiptoe, creaking and shuffling. A fevered, impossible, icy sun hung in the fog - to the left, to the right, above, below - a dove over a house on fire. From the delirium-born, misty world, dragon men dived up into the earthly world, belched fog - heard in the misty world as words, but here becoming nothing - round white puffs of smoke. The dragon men dived up and disappeared again into the fog. And trolleys rushed screeching out of the earthly world into the unknown. ("The Dragon") — 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

Imagine yourself standing on a shore: waves rhythmically rising, rising, and then suddenly they stay there, they set, they freeze. — 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

And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all those who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet - you understand - this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time - wild, shaggy - he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is - its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn. Well - argue with me, prove the contrary! — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense. ("The North") — 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

Life itself today has lost its plane reality: it is projected, not along the old fixed points, but along the dynamic coordinates of Einstein, of revolution. In this new projection, the best-known formulas and objects become displaced, fantastic, familiar-unfamiliar. This is why it is so logical for literature today to be drawn to the fantastic plot, or to an amalgam of reality and fantasy. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons ... we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless "Why?" and "What next?". — Yevgeny Zamyatin

And it seems to me that everyone is like me - they're all afraid of the slightest movement ... Everyone's sitting all closed up in his own glass cage waiting for something. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The multiplication table is more wise and more absolute than the ancient god, for the multiplication table never (do you understand - never) makes mistakes! There are no more fortunate and happy people than those who live according to the correct, eternal laws of the multiplication table. No hesitation! No errors! There is but one truth, and there is but one path to it; and that truth is: four, and that path is: two times two. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

I walked alone through the twilit street. The wind was whirling, driving, carrying me like a slip of paper. Fragments of cast-iron sky flew and flew-they had another day, two days to hurtle through infinity ...
The unifs of passersby brushed against me, but I walked alone. I saw it clearly: everyone was saved, but there was no salvation for me. I did not want salvation ... (c) — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The most wonderful thing in life is to be delirious and the most wonderful kind of delirium is being in love. In the morning mist, hazy and amorous, London was delirious. London squinted as it floated along, milky pink, without caring where it was going. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

And tomorrow
who knows what happens? Do you get it? I don't know and no one knows
it's all unknown! You understand, that this is the end to the Known? This is the new, the improbable, the unpredictable. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo. He was right that the earth revolves around the sun, but he didn't know that the entire solar system revolves around yet another center; he didn't know that the real orbit of the earth, as opposed to the relative orbit, is by no means some naive circle ... — 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

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

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

The next stage of development, perhaps in the distant future, will be a social order under which there will be no need for the coercive power of the state. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

To reflect the entire spectrum, the dynamics of the adventure novel must be invested with a philosophic synthesis of one kind or another. — 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

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 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

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

Was it not I who populated with them all these pages - just recently no more than white rectangular deserts? Without me, would they ever be seen by those whom I shall lead behind me along the narrow paths of lines? — Yevgeny Zamyatin

The most effective way of destroying art is the canonization of one given form. And one philosophy. — 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

One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is a tradition, paradoxically, of experimenters and innovators. Perhaps the principal quality that unites them is their approach to reality and its uses in art - the refusal to be bound by literal fact, the interweaving of reality and fantasy, the transmutation of fact into poetry, often grotesque, oblique, playful, but always expressive of the writer's unique vision of life in his own, unique terms. — Mirra Ginsburg

An error is more useful than truth: truth is a thought suffering from arteriosclerosis. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

there should be no love just because, but only 'love because of. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Gods have become like us, ergo, we have become like gods. And to you, my unknown planetary readers, we will come to you, to make your life as divinely rational and exact as ours. — Yavgeny Zamyatin -We

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

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

The art of the word is painting + architecture + music. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you; you hate it because you are afraid of it; you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Tipsy, they tumbled early into bed - to get as much sleep as they could. So they would feel less hunger. The summer catch had been poor; there wasn't much food. They ate with care and looked sideways at the old: the old were gluttons, everybody knew it, and what was the good of feeding them? It wouldn't harm them to starve a little.
The hungry dogs howled. The women rinsed the children's bellies with hot water three times a day, so they wouldn't cry so much for food. The old starved silently. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

If they will not understand that we are bringing them a mathematically faultless happiness, our duty will be to force them to be happy. But before we take up arms, we shall try the power of words. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

From a distance a metronome is ticking through the fog, and I mechanically chew to the familiar caress of its music, counting, along with everyone else, up to fifty: fifty statutory chews for each mouthful. And, still mechanically beating out the time, I go downstairs, and, like everyone else, check off my name in the book as one leaving the premises. But I sense that I'm living separately from everyone else, alone, surrounded by a soft, soundproof wall, and that my world is on my side of this wall. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number. — Yevgeny Zamyatin