Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes

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.

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

There was a time when I just felt like a superwoman. I was like, 'I got Jesus! I ain't afraid!' But, the truth is, I want to do things right, and sometimes I am afraid that I'm not good enough or that I'm not going to handle something right.

If isolation tempers the strong, it is the stumbling-block of the uncertain.

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

It is of no help to us that there is an absolute truth of the matter of things because unfortunately, none of us are in a position to say definitively what that is - although we all think that we are.

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

Actually I don't know if honesty is a strength or some kind of weakness.

The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure.

It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat. I have truth on my side, you only have deceit.

Certainty is no guarantor of correctness.

Whatever we thought was certain is no longer certain, and therefore in science probably certain things must be correct, but in human behaviour I am not so sure.

If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain.

The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever

It's not a bad thing, is it, to be strong in some ways and fragile and vulnerable in others?

The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

I love my nation, I cannot see you degraded, weakened any more than you are now. Therefore I am bound for your sake and for truth's to cry, "Hold!" and to raise my voice against this degradation of my race. Give up these weakening mysticism and be strong.

Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else's is the wrong one.

No one is ever quite as strong or as weak as you'd think.

We move from the illusion of certainty, to the certainty of illusion

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.