We Quotes

“You can only love something that refuses to be mastered.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“The news I read was so upsetting that it drove all else out of my mind. There was but one short line:   "According to reliable sources, new traces have been discovered of the elusive organization which aims at liberation from the beneficent yoke of the State."   "Liberation?" Amazing, the extent to which criminal instincts persist in human nature.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, WE

“Even among the ancients, the most mature among them knew that the source of right is might; that right is a function of power. And so, we have the scales: on one side, a grain, on the other a ton; on one side "I," on the other "We," the One State. Is it not clear, then, that to assume that the "I" can have some "rights" in relation to the State is exactly like assuming that a gram can balance the scale against the ton? Hence, the division: rights to the ton, duties to the gram.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, WE

“Even among the ancients, the most mature among them knew that the source of right is might; that right is a function of power. And so, we have the scales: on one side, a grain, on the other a ton; on one side "I," on the other "We," the One State. Is it not clear, then, that to assume that the "I" can have some "rights" in relation to the State is exactly like assuming that a gram can balance the scale against the ton? Hence, the division: rights to the ton, duties to the gram. And the natural path from nonentity to greatness is to forget that you are a gram and feel yourself instead a millionth of a ton. You,”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, WE

“a point contains more unknowns than anything else; it need but stir, move, and it may turn into thousands of curves, thousands of bodies. I”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, WE

“I ask you: what did people—from their very infancy—pray for, dream about, long for? They longed for some one to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, WE

“Seni korkutuyor çünkü senden güçlü. Nefret ediyorsun çünkü korkuyorsun. Seviyorsun çünkü iplerini eline alamıyorsun. İnsan sadece köle edemediğini sever.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Gün ışığı. Anlattıklarımın, düşündüklerimin hiçbiri yitip gitmedi; sadece gün ışığıyla örtüldü. Tıpkı nesnelerin geceleri yitip gitmemesi, sadece karanlıkla örtülmesi gibi...”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Bir terazi alın ve bir tarafına bir gram, diğerine bir ton koyun. Bir yanda "Ben", diğer yanda "Biz," yani TekDevlet. Apaçık, değil mi? "Ben"in devlet karşısında hakka sahipliğini öne sürmek, bir gram, bir tona eşittir demekle tamamen aynıdır. Gramlığını unut ve bir tonun milyonda biri olduğunu hisset.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Duyarlı değilim; hastayım ben, bir ruhum var, bir mikrobum ben! Ama çiçek açmak bir hastalık değil midir? Filiz yarılarak açıldığında canı yanmaz mı?”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Düşünen, görüş sahibi bir yaratığın düzensizlikler, bilinmezler, X'ler arasında yaşaması doğaya aykırıdır: Gözlerinizi bağladıklarını ve yürümeye, hem de hemen birkaç adım ötede uçurumun kenarının bulunduğunu bildiğiniz halde el yordamıyla yürümeye zorladıklarını farz edin.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“По-рано никога не ми беше идвало наум – но е точно така: през цялото време се движим над клокочещо червено море от огън, скрито там – в утробата на земята. Но никога не мислим за това. А ако изведнъж тънката черупка под краката ни стане стъклена – тогава бихме видели…
Аз станах стъклен. Видях – вътре у себе си.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“A person is a novel: you don't know how it will end until the very last page. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth reading to the very end.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

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

“Понимаете («п» – фонтан) – древняя легенда о рае… Это ведь о нас, о теперь. Да! Вы вдумайтесь. Тем двум в раю – был представлен выбор: или счастье без свободы – или свобода без счастья; третьего не дано. Они, олухи, выбрали свободу – и что же: понятно – потом века тосковали об оковах. Об оковах – понимаете, – вот о чем мировая скорбь. Века!”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“But how explain all of myself, all of my sickness, recorded in these pages? And I subsided and walked obediently. ... A leaf torn off a tree by a sudden blast of wind obediently falls downward, but on the way it whirls, catches at every familiar branch, fork, knot And I, too, was catching at every silent spherical head, at the transparent ice of the walls, at the blue spire of the Accumulator Tower piercing a cloud.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“They say that with the ancients dreaming was a perfectly ordinary, normal occurrence. But of course, their whole life was a dreadful whirling carousel—green, orange, Buddhas, sap. We, however, know that dreams are a serious psychic disease. And I know that until this moment my brain has been a chronometrically exact gleaming mechanism without a single speck of dust. But now . . . Yes, precisely: I feel some alien body in my brain, like the finest eyelash in the eye. You do not feel your body, but that eye with the lash in it—you can't forget it for a second. . . .”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“If only I had a mother, the way the ancients had. I mean my own mother. And if for her I could be —not the Builder of the Integral, and not number D-503, and not a molecule of the One State, but just a piece of humanity, a piece of her own self, trampled, crushed, outcast . . .”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Then a momentary curtain of cotton-wadding clouds-through it- and the sun was shining in a blue sky. Seconds, minutes, miles—and the blue was quickly becoming firm and suffused with darkness, the stars were emerging like drops of cold silver sweat.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Crystalline, chromatic
scales converging and diverging into endless series; and synthetic harmony of the formulae of Taylor and McLauren, wholesome, square, and massive like the "trousers of Pythagoras." Sad melodies dying away in waving movements. The beautiful texture of the spectrum of planets, dissected by Frauenhofer lines ... what magnificent, what perfect regularity! How pitiful the willful music of the ancients, not limited except by the scope of their wild imaginations!”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“No, I did not understand. But I nodded silently. I was dissolved, I was infinitely small, I was a point...

There is, after all, a logic of its own (today's logic) in this condition: a point contains more unknowns than anything else; it need but stir, move, and it may turn into thousands of curves, thousands of bodies.

I was afraid to stir: what would I turn into?”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Oh, knowledge! This knowledge of yours is only cowardice. Don't argue, it's true. You're simply trying to enclose infinity behind a wall, and you are terrified to glance outside the wall. Yes! Just try and take a look, and you will shut your eyes. Yes!”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“One day Plapa told us about irrational numbers, and, I remember, I cried, banged my fists on the table, and screamed, "I don't want V-1"!! Take V-1 out of me!" That irrational root grew in me like something foreign, alien, terrifying. It devoured me, and you couldn't make sense of it or neutralize it, because it was completely beyond ratio.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“R shook his head, scratched it. From the rear his head looks like it has a little square suitcase attached to it. (It reminds me of an old painting called "In the Carriage".)
...
I looked at that tightly locked little suitcase of his and wondered, "What thoughts are turning over now in that case?”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“She was looking down at something; her eyes were lowered, like blinds.

I thought suddenly of how you walk along the avenue around 22:00 hours, and among the brightly lit cages there are some dark ones, with the blinds lowered...What was going on there in her head, behind her blinds?
...
Then she raised the blinds, looked up...”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Haven't written here in several days, I don't know how many: All the days seem like one. All the days have one color—yellow, like parched, fiery sand. And there isn't a shred of shade, nor a drop of water, and no end of the yellow sand.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“But how was I going to explain my whole being, this whole disease that I've been jotting down in these pages? So I shut up and went along peacefully. A leaf torn off a tree by a sudden gust of wind falls peacefully downward, but on the way it twists, catches at every twig, offshoot, branch that it knows. That is just how I caught at each silent spherical head, at the transparent ice of the walls, at the light blue needle of the Accumulator Tower as it thrust up into the clouds.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“They longed for someone to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain. What are we doing now, if not this very thing?”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Cennetteki iki kişiden bir seçim yapmaları istenir: ya özgür olmadan mutlu olmaları ya da mutlu olmadan özgür olmaları; üçüncü bir seçenek sunulmaz. Budalalar özgürlüğü seçerler, sonra ne oldu, yüzyıllar boyunca zincirlerini özlediler.”
― Yevgeni Zamian, We

“Kendi edebiyatlarının ve şiirlerinin saçmalığının eski çağlarda yaşayan insanların gözüne nasıl çarpmamış olabileceğini düşündüm. Sanatsal sözün o devasa, harikulade gücü kesinlikle boş yere harcanmış. Herkesin aklına eseni yazması sadece komik. Eski çağlarda yaşayanların denizlerinin sadece her gün kıyıyı dövmesi ve dalgalarda saklı olan milyonlarca kilogram gücün sadece âşıkların duygularını ısıtmaya gitmesi de ayrıca komik ve saçma. Biz dalgaların aşk fısıltılarından elektrik elde ettik, kudurmuşçasına kabaran köpükleri olan canavarı evcil hayvana dönüştürdük ve bir zamanlar şiirin vahşi olan doğasını da aynı şekilde ehlileştirdik ve yerleşik kıldık. Artık şiir arsız bir bülbülün ötüşü değil, şiir bir devlet hizmeti, şiir bir fayda.”
― Yevgeni Zamian, We