Yevgeny Zamyatin, We Quotes
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")
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.
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.
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.
Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.
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.
Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers are invariably children.
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...
The government (or humanity) would not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time.
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.
And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything.