Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.

The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...

Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

Greatness, in the last analysis, is largely bravery - courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards and respectable ways of doing things.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

… all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

Freedom is the right to question, and change the established way of doing things.…It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to dream-- to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience, even if you're the only one in a sea of doubters.

If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.

Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.

All great truths begin as blasphemy. Every single revolutionary idea that has ever been visited upon the human experience began as an idea which was rejected.

Conformists die, but heretics live forever.

Every really new idea looks crazy at first.

All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new.

So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination.

I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative.

You know that I'm always a proponent of doing things differently.

But in a broader sense, when I have more control, I want to expose people to new ideas.