We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X")
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's desensitization to violence and suffering.
Yevgeny Zamyatin's quote suggests that society has become so numb to the brutality and loss of life around us that we have developed emotional calluses. This desensitization signifies a disturbing acceptance of violence, indicating a need for deep reflection on our values and consciousness.
In practice
Discussing the importance of empathy in a community meeting.
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.
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities.
When remaining in awareness itself, every thought movement, no matter what kind, is like a drawing in air.
Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.
Here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, _x000D_ harmony with things as they happen.
How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?
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