Quotes by Yevgeny Zamyatin

About Yevgeny Zamyatin:

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin is most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story set in a dystopian future police state. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the CPSU following the October Revolution. In 1921, We became the first work banned by the Soviet censorship board. Ultimately, Zamyatin arranged for We to be smuggled to the West for publication. The subsequent outrage this sparked within the Party and the Union of Soviet Writers led directly to Zamyatin's successful request for exile from his homeland. Due to his use of literature to criticize Soviet society, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In the ancient world, this was understood by the Christians, our only (if very imperfect) predecessors: Humility is a virtue, pride a vice; We comes from God, I from the Devil.

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 ho...

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 bucke...

Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith

Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is said there are flowers that bloom only once in a hundred years. Why should there not be some that bloom once in a thousand, in ten thousand years? Perhaps we never know about them simply because this "once in a thousand years" has come today.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

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

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

The government (or humanity) would not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time.

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

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

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

And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

The only reason I'm writing this down is to show how human reason, even very sharp and exact human reason, can get crazily confused and thrown off the track.

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

Do you believe that you will die? Yes, man is mortal, I am a man, ergo... No, that isn't what I mean. I know that you know that. What I'm asking is: Have you ever actually believed it, believe it completely, believe not with your mind but with your b...

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Great Benefactor! How absurd- to want pain! Can there be anyone who doesn't know that pain is a negative quality, and that if you add them up it reduces the sum we call happiness? so it follows... But...nothing follows. The slate is clean. Naked.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Then how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

The flame will cool tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow (in the Book of Genesis days are equal to years, ages). But someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow. Heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the ent...

Yevgeny Zamyatin

There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

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 o...

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Author Bio

  • NameYevgeny Zamyatin
  • DescriptionRussian author
  • BornFebruary 1, 1884
  • DiedMarch 10, 1937
  • CountryRussian Empire; Soviet Union
  • ProfessionScience Fiction Writer; Engineer; Satirist; Librettist
  • WorksWe
  • AwardsPrometheus Award - Hall Of Fame