Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [605]

And so, we have the scales: on one side, a grain, on the other a ton; on one side “I,” on the other “We,” the One State. Is it not clear, then, that to assume that the “I” can have some “rights” in relation to the State is exactly like assuming that a gram can balance the scale against the ton? Hence, the division: rights to the ton, duties to the gram. And the natural path from nonentity to greatness is to forget that you are a gram and feel yourself instead a millionth of a ton. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 605

Note

The chilling rhetorical transformation of political oppression into a mechanical tautology through the metaphor of scales.