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.
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.
The scapegoat has always had the mysterious power of unleashing man's ferocious pleasure in torturing, corrupting, and befouling.
PRACTICE OF THE Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of nonviolence. It is faith in the power of purification and faith in the power of life itself. It is not a type of rigid discipline or empty asceticism. It is a path that follows natural principles, principles, that must be applied to daily living. The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night.
We have all been hearing from childhood of such things as love, peace, charity, equality, and universal brotherhood; but they have become to us mere words without meaning, words which we repeat like parrots, and it has become quite natural for us to do so. We cannot help it.
Mankind invented the atomic bomb, _x000D_ but no mouse would ever construct _x000D_ a mousetrap.
If we live truly, we shall see truly.
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