He who has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had. Stanislaw Lem More Quotes by Stanislaw Lem More Quotes From Stanislaw Lem Our ability to adapt and therefore to accept everything is one of our greatest dangers. Creatures that are completely flexible, changeable, can have no fixed morality. Stanislaw Lem moralityacceptingdanger We didn't know each other well. I never had the time. Now I see that it doesn't make any difference. The ones who hurry and the ones who take their time all end up in the same place. Just don't have any regrets. No regrets. Stanislaw Lem differencesregretends What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is. Stanislaw Lem passionbelieveideas Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Stanislaw Lem agedoemen The number of one's possible fantasies is inversely proportional to the amount of one's liquid assets. For him who has everything dreams are no longer possible. Stanislaw Lem liquiddreamnumbers That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox... Stanislaw Lem jukeboxcoinstunes Science is turning into a monastery for the Order of Capitulant Friars. Logical calculus is supposed to supersede man as moralist. We submit to the blackmail of the 'superior knowledge' that has the temerity to assert that nuclear war can be, by derivation, a good thing, because this follows from simple arithmetic. Stanislaw Lem simplemenwar Nothing, my dear and clever colleague, is not your run-of-the-mill nothing, the result of idleness and inactivity, but dynamic, aggressive Nothingness, that is to say, perfect, unique, ubiquitous, in other words Nonexistence, ultimate and supreme. Stanislaw Lem uniquecleverrunning The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that Finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. Stanislaw Lem strongeragelying A specialist is a barbarian whose ignorance is not well-rounded. Stanislaw Lem barbarianswellsignorance Plentitude, when too plentitudinous, was worst than destitution, for obviously what could one do, if there was nothing one could not? Stanislaw Lem worstifs Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve his age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. Stanislaw Lem rebelagemen The twentieth century had dispensed with the formal declaration of war and introduced the fifth column, sabotage, cold war, and war by proxy, but that was only the begining. Summit meetings for disarmament pursued mutual understanding and a balance of power but were also held to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. The world of the war-or-peace alternative became a world in which war was peace and peace war. Stanislaw Lem understandingwarenemy Psychoanalysis provides truth in an infantile, that is, a schoolboy fashion: we learn from it, roughly and hurriedly, things that scandalize us and thereby command our attention. It sometimes happens, and such is the case here, that a simplification touching upon the truth, but cheaply, is of no more value than a lie. Once again we are shown the demon and the angel, the beast and the god locked in Manichean embrace, and once again man has been pronounced, by himself, not culpable. Stanislaw Lem fashionangellying I have to admit that he was not bad at combinatorial analysis - a branch, however, that even then I considered to be dried up. Stanislaw Lem mathematicsanalysisbranches The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass. Stanislaw Lem glassesfearnight Cripple God, who always desires more than he's able to have, and doesn't always realize this to begin with. Who has built clocks, but not the time that they measure. Has built systems or mechanisms that serve particular purposes, but they too have outgrown these purposes and betrayed them. And has created an infinity that, from being the measure of the power he was supposed to have, turned into the measure of his boundless failure. Stanislaw Lem betrayedpurposedesire Where do consequences lead? Depends on the escort. Stanislaw Lem escortingdependsconsequence Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain? Stanislaw Lem enormousmountainstones I had no hope. Yet expectation lived on in me, the last thing she had left behind. What further consummations, mockeries, torments did I still anticipate? I had no idea as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over. Stanislaw Lem lastsexpectationsideas
