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

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Yevgeny Zamyatin
Age: 53 †
Born: 1884
Born: January 1
Died: 1937
Died: January 1
Author
Engineer
Librettist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Prosaist
Satirist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin
Eugene Zamyatin
Difficult
Sacrifice
Ruthlessness
Inspirational
Toward
Crossing
Art
Perhaps
Crossings
Self
Name
Superfluous
Whole
Greatest
Removed
Names
Decide
Must
Literature
Requires
Writing
Eye
Parts
Sharpest
Even

More quotes by Yevgeny Zamyatin

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The microspeed of the tongue ought to be always slightly less than the microspeed of the thoughts and certainly not ever the reverse.
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We comes from God, I from the Devil.
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The ancient God created the old man, capable of erring - thus he erred himself.
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Explosions are not comfortable.
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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.
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The whole world is one immense woman, and we are in her very womb, we are not yet born, we are joyfully ripening.
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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?
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And happiness...Well, after all, desires torment us, don't they? And, clearly, happiness is when there are no more desires, not one...What a mistake, what ridiculous prejudice it's been to have marked happiness always with a plus sign. Absolute happiness should, of course, carry a minus sign — the divine minus.
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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.
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Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
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The flame will cool tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.... But someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow. Heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the entropy of human thought.
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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
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There is no joy nobler than suffering for the sake of love for man.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
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The mighty power of logic cleanses all it touches.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
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The moon ... is a mad woman holding up her dress So that her white belly shines. Haughty, Impregnable, Ridiculous, Silent and white as a debauched queen.
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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
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Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
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The latest literary discussions reflect a struggle between two artistic methods - romanticism and realism, with the latter clearly ascendant for the time being.
Yevgeny Zamyatin
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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
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The knife is the most durable, immortal, the most genius thing that man created. The knife was the guillotine the knife is the universal means of solving all knots and along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox - the single most worthy path of the fearless mind.
Yevgeny Zamyatin