I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggle of maintaining rational thought amidst overwhelming pressure.
Yevgeny Zamyatin uses the metaphor of a machine to illustrate the human experience of being pushed to one’s limits. He conveys the idea that when faced with intense stress and emotional turmoil, even logic can fail to provide relief, evidenced by the 'sizzling' of cold water on hot bearings. The imagery suggests that without a break or cooling off, a person may reach a breaking point, leading to a sense of impending collapse.
In practice
In a motivational speech about stress management, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of taking breaks.
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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.
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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.
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
The idea of a cure for autism is itself controversial. Some people with autism say they don't want to be cured, because autism gives them a different way of looking at the world.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth. Our children know and suffer the armed men.
Tradition, long conditioned thinking, can bring about a fixation, a concept that one readily accepts, perhaps not with a great deal of thought.
Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
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The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.
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