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.
Ugly deeds are taught by ugly deeds.
In reading, you sense the divine: the things that are larger and greater and more mysterious than yourself.
Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.
In time you may discover everything that can be discovered, and still your progress will only be progress away from humanity. The distance between you and them can one day become so great that your joyous cry over some new gain could be answered by an universal shriek of horror.
No, I donβt wish I knew Heaven was like the picture in my Great Divorce, because, if we knew that, we should know it was no better. The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.
The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.
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