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Do you understand? Even the thoughts! It is because nobody is one, but one of. We are all so much alike—
The State (humanitarianism) forbade in those days the murder of one person, but it did not forbid the killing of millions slowly and by inches. To kill one person, that is, to reduce the individual span of human life by fifty years, was considered criminal, but to reduce the general sum of human life by fifty million years was not considered criminal!
“Love and Hunger rule the world.”
Probably on account of religious prejudices, the primitive peasants stubbornly held on to their “bread.”1 In
Zamyatin's use of footnotes in clever
For there were some whose love was sought by everyone, and others whose love was sought by no one.
‘to be common’ is with us only the fulfilling of one’s duty. For—”
Liberation! It is remarkable how persistent human criminal instincts are! I use deliberately the word “criminal,” for freedom and crime are as closely related as—well, as the movement of an aero and its speed: if the speed of an aero equals zero, the aero is motionless; if human liberty is equal to zero, man does not commit any crime. That is clear. The way to rid man of criminality is to rid him of freedom.
“Why ‘and I’? Why this ‘and’? Just like a woman!”
"but she breaks just like a little girl"
Their god did not invent anything cleverer than sacrificing oneself, nobody knows what for; we bring to our god, the United State, a quiet, rational, carefully thought-out sacrifice.
Yes, it was a solemn liturgy for the United State, a reminiscence of the great days, years, of the Two Hundred Years’ War—a magnificent celebration of the victory of all over one, of the sum over the individual!
There were two in paradise and the choice was offered to them: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. No other choice. Tertium non datur.
The ancient god created ancient man, i.e., the man capable of mistakes; ergo, the ancient god himself made a mistake.
“Then you love it. For if you fear it because it is stronger than you, hate it because you fear it, you love it. For you cannot subject it to yourself. One loves only the things one cannot conquer.”
“Why? Well, why don’t we grow feathers or wings, but have only shoulder blades, bases for wings? We have aeros; wings would only be in the way. Wings are needed in order to fly, but we don’t need to fly anywhere. We have arrived at the terminus. We have found what we wanted. Is that not so?”
Probably you, my unknown readers, are children still as compared with us. We are brought up by the United State; consequently we have reached the highest summits attainable by man. And you, being children, may swallow without crying all the bitter things I am to give you only if they be coated with the syrup of adventures.
Isn’t it strange: the passing rays of the evening sun fall to the earth at the same angle as the awakening rays of the morning, yet they make everything seem so different; the pink tinge is different. At sunset it is so quiet, somewhat melancholy; at sunrise it is resounding, boisterous.
Yet she remained drooping over the table. Drooping eyelids, drooping arms and legs. The pink check of the other was still on the table. I quickly opened this manuscript, We, and with its pages I covered the check, trying to hide it from myself, rather than from O-.
Even the ancients (the most mature of them) knew that the source of right was—might! Right is a function of might.
And the natural road from nothingness to greatness is to forget that one is a gram and to feel that one is one millionth of a ton!
“Why? Hm.… A real physician begins to treat a patient when he is still well but on the way to becoming sick tomorrow, day after tomorrow, or within a week. Prophylaxis! Yes!”
“You look abnormal and ill, dear. Abnormality and illness are the same thing. You are killing yourself. And no one would tell you that, no one!”
And that strange feeling of being lost somewhere, of not knowing where I am—that feeling is gone.
If your world is similar to the world of the ancients, then you may easily imagine that one day you suddenly come upon a sixth or a seventh continent, upon some Atlantis, and you find there unheard-of cities, labyrinths, people flying through the air without the aid of wings or aeros, stones lifted into the air by the power of a gaze—in brief, imagine that you see things that cannot come to your mind even if you suffer from dream sickness. That is how I feel now. For you must understand that no one has ever gone beyond the Green Wall since the Two Hundred Years’ War, as I have already told
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Man is like a novel: up to the last page one does not know what the end will be. It would not be worth reading otherwise.”
“But it is folly,” I said. “You, versus the United State! It’s the same as if you were to cover the muzzle of a gun with your hands and expect that way to prevent the shot.… It is absolute folly!”
“And why then do you think there is a last revolution … their number is infinite.… The ‘last one’ is a child’s story. Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is necessary that children should not be frightened, so that they may sleep through the night.”
“We? For the time being we know that there is no last number. We may forget that, someday. Of course, we shall certainly forget it when we grow old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall inevitably fall like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the day after tomorrow.… No, no, dear, not you personally. You are with us, aren’t you? You are with us?”
It was as if you already ascended the steps toward the threatening machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy thud had already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked at the blue sky to devour it with your eyes … when suddenly, it was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall… What happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in the white pillow! … This is approximately what I felt, when I read the State Journal this morning. It has all been a terrible dream,
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“Happiness … well? … Desires are tortures, aren’t they? It is clear, therefore, that happiness is when there are no longer any desires, not a single desire any more. What an error, what an absurd prejudice it was, that we used to mark happiness with the sign ‘plus’! No, absolute happiness must be marked ‘minus’—divine minus!”
“Why … why ‘good-by’?” “You have been ill, have you not? Because of me you have committed crimes. Hasn’t all this tormented you? And now you have the Operation to look forward to. You will be cured of me. And that means—good-by.”
Unifs of Numbers were brushing my sides—yet I was walking alone. It was clear to me that all were being saved but that there was no salvation for me. For I do not want salvation.…
Do you believe that you will die? Oh, yes, “Man is mortal; I am a man; consequently …” No, not that; I know that; you know it. But I ask: Has it ever happened that you actually believed it? Believed definitely, believed not with your reason but with your body, that you actually felt that someday those fingers which now hold this page will become yellow, icy? …
this is how I would explain the dissonance between some of my thoughts and my actions
I'm not thinking my actions through to their logical conclusions
An absurd feeling, yet it was there; I really must! Absurd, because this “duty” of mine was nothing but another crime. Absurd, because white and black cannot be one, duty and crime cannot coincide. Or perhaps there is no black and white in life, but everything depends upon the first logical premise? If the premise is that I unlawfully gave her a child …
Do you realize how wonderful it is? To fly without knowing where … no matter where?
What does it matter to you that I do not want others to desire for me? I want to desire for myself. If I desire the impossible …”
“If your silence is intended to mean that you agree with me, then let us talk as adults do after the children have gone to bed; let us talk to the logical end. I ask: what was it that man from his diaper age dreamed of, tormented himself for, prayed for? He longed for that day when someone would tell him what happiness is, and then would chain him to it. What else are we doing now?
She came close to me and embraced me. Her knees, through her dress, were like a slow, gentle, warm, enveloping, and permeating poison …
like the ancient anecdote about Abraham and Isaac: Abraham all in a cold sweat, with the knife already raised over his son, over himself, and suddenly a voice from above: “Never mind … I was only joking.”
fuckin' right lmfao
