Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that true knowledge, when held with certainty, parallels the concept of faith.
In this quote, Yevgeny Zamyatin explores the relationship between knowledge and faith. He implies that when knowledge is viewed as infallible and certain, it transforms into a kind of faith, highlighting the similarities between absolute belief in facts and the trust placed in spiritual or philosophical principles. This reflection invites consideration of how humans engage with what they perceive as truth and the faith that underlies that certainty.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of belief, someone might quote Zamyatin to illustrate how knowledge can become a belief system.
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.
Accentuated plainness and accentuated vice ought to bring about harmony. Beauty lies in harmony, in style, whether it be the harmony of ugliness or beauty, vice or virtue.
The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...
The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (βA Story About The Most Important Thingβ)
A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.
You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.
War should always be the absolute last resort.
Choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions.
Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life
Incidentally, one of the most worrying problems in the impact of Western modernity on traditional culture is that it quite rapidly communicates its own indifference or anxiety or even hostility about age and ageing.
From the very first, it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership?
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
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