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Stanisław Lem

60 quotes

“Not everything everywhere is for us.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Invincible (1963)
“The only way to deal with technology is with another technology. Man knows more about his dangerous tendencies than he did a hundred years ago, and in the next hundred years, his knowledge will be even more advanced. Then he will make use of it.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summa Technologiae (1964)
“Either something is authentic or it is unauthentic, it is either false or true, make-believe or spontaneous life; yet here we are faced with a prevaricated truth and an authentic fake, hence a thing that is at once the truth and a lie.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gruppenführer Louis XVI", in A Perfect Vacuum (1971), tr. Michael Kandel (1978)
“He is no parasite on anything, whose work is real: a mechanic, a doctor, a builder, a tailor, a dishwasher. What, in comparison, does a writer produce? Semblances. This is a serious occupation?”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rien du tout, ou la conséquence" ("Nothing, or the Consequence"), in A Perfect Vacuum (1971), tr. Michael Kandel (1978)
“Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Star Diaries (1976)
“The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Star Diaries (1976)
“Not only does God play dice with the world—He does not let us see what He has rolled.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Imaginary Magnitude" (1981), "Lecture XLIII", tr. Marc E. Heine (1984)
“Oh, I read good books, too, but only Earthside. Why that is, I don't really know. Never stopped to analyze it. Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way. When they talk about outer space, they make you feel the silence, so unlike the Earthly kind — and the lifelessness. Whatever the adventures, the message is always the same: humans will never feel at home out there.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pirx's Tale" in More Tales of Pirx The Pilot (1983)
“And do you believe in God?" "I do." "But you didn't think a robot would, right?" "Right.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Inquest" in More Tales of Pirx the Pilot (1983)
“In an extreme instance, in which there is a Propervirt of less than 0.9%, the TEXT OF THE PRESENT PROSPECTUS may likewise undergo an ABRUPT change. If, while you are reading these sentences, the words begin to jump about, and the letters quiver and blur, please interrupt your reading for ten or twenty seconds to wipe your glasses, adjust your clothing, or the like, and then start reading AGAIN from the beginning, and NOT JUST from the place where your reading was interrupted, since such a TRANSFORMATION indicates that a correction of DEFICIENCIES is now taking place.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Imaginary Magnitude (1984), p. 86
“For moral reasons I am an atheist — for moral reasons. I am of the opinion that you would recognize a creator by his creation, and the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created by anyone than to think that somebody created this intentionally.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Peter Engel, "An Interview With Stanislaw Lem": The Missouri Review, Volume VII, Number 2 (1984)
“It is not good for a man to be too cognizant of his physical and spiritual mechanisms. Complete knowledge reveals limits to human possibilities, and the less a man is by nature limited in his purposes, the less he can tolerate limits.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fiasco (1986), Ch. 3, tr. Michael Kandel (1987)
“Even a fool could see that one didn't need a war, nuclear or otherwise, to destroy oneself; the rising cost of weaponry could do that quite nicely.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Peace on Earth (1987), tr. Elinor Ford (1994) from Pokój na Ziemi, Ch. 1
“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 beginning. 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.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Peace on Earth (1987), tr. Elinor Ford (1994) from Pokój na Ziemi, Ch. 2
“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.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Peace on Earth (1987), tr. Elinor Ford (1994) from Pokój na Ziemi, Ch. 4
“Starożytni mawiali: mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. Świat łaknie oszustw, więc jest oszukiwany.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Blink of an Eye", Okamgnienie (2000); the phrase "Mundus Vult Decipi" was used as a motto by the American satirist James Branch Cabell and is said to have originated with Petronius.
“A man who for an entire week does nothing but hit himself over the head has little reason to be proud.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are only a puppet. But you don't realize that you are.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any attempt to understand the motivation of these occurrences is blocked by our own anthropomorphism. Where there are no men, there cannot be motives accessible to men.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding out what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Really, one of us ought to have the courage to call the experiment off and shoulder the responsibility for the decision, but the majority reckons that that kind of courage would be a sign of cowardice, and the first step in a retreat. They think it would mean an undignified surrender for mankind — as if there was any dignity in floundering and drowning in what we don't understand and never will.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a rocket a person can burst like a bubble, or solidify completely, or boil, or explode in a fountain of blood so quickly he doesn't have time to shout out, and then only his bones will be clattering against the metal, and they'll go on circling in Newtonian orbit with an Einsteinian adjustment, our rattles of progress! And we'll go willingly, because it's a beautiful journey, till we arrive, and in these cabins, over this tableware, amid the immortal dishwashers, with our serried ranks of faithful lockers, our devoted toilets, here is our fulfillment.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12: "The Dreams" (2011 Johnston translation)
“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.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In the 2011 Johnston translation (p. 208), the quote is rendered differently: A human being, appearances to the contrary, doesn't create his own purposes. These are imposed by the time he's born into; he may serve them,…
“Everything is explicable in the terms of the behavior of a small child.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that Finis vitae sed non amoris [Life ends but not love], is a lie, useless and not even funny.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To replay human existence — fine, but to replay it in the way a drunk replays a corny tune, pushing coins over and over into the jukebox?”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 14: "The Old Mimoid" (2011 Johnston translation)
“I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could build anything beginning with the letter 'n'.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take a good look at this world, how riddled it is with huge, gaping holes, how full of Nothingness, the Nothingness that fills the bottomless void between the stars, how everything about us has become lined with it, how it darkly lurks behind each shred of matter. This is your work, envious one! And I hardly think the future generations will bless you for it...”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Come, let us hasten to a higher plane Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n Commingled in an endless Markov chain! I'll grant thee random access to my heart, Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove, And in our bound partition never part. Cancel me not — for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who has had, has been, but he who hasn't been, has been had.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who must be what he is, may curse his fate, but cannot change it; on the other hand, he who can transform himself has no one in the world but himself to blame for his failings, no one but himself to hold responsible for his dissatisfaction.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Plenitude, when too plenitudinous, was worse than destitution, for — obviously — what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each civilization may choose one of two roads to travel, that is, either fret itself to death, or pet itself to death. And in the course of doing one or the other, it eats its way into the Universe, turning cinders and flinders of stars into toilet seats, pegs, gears, cigarette holders and pillowcases, and it does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks to change that Fathomlessness into Something Fathomable.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you should be afflicted with a hump, for example, but firmly believe the Almighty somehow needs your hump to realize His Cosmic Design and that it was therefore ordained along with the rest of Creation, why, then you may be easily reconciled to your deformity. If, however, they tell you that it's merely the result of a misplaced molecule, an atom or two that happened to go the wrong way, then nothing remains for you but to bay at the moon.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clarity of thought is a shining point in a vast expanse of unrelieved darkness. Genius is not so much a light as it is a constant awareness of the surrounding gloom, and its typical cowardice is to bathe in its own glow and avoid, as much as possible, looking out beyond its boundary. No matter how much genuine strength it may contain, there is also, inevitably, a considerable part that is only the pretense of that strength.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is no coincidence, I am sure, that those who have the most to say about the Project are the ones who have had no direct contact with it. Which is similar to the attitude physicists have regarding gravitation or electrons — as opposed to that of the "well-informed" who read popular science. The "well-informed" think they know something about matters that the experts are reluctant to even to speak of. Information at second hand always gives an impression of tidiness, in contrast with the data at the scientist's disposal, full of gaps and uncertainties.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It turns out, however, that freedom of expression sometimes presents a greater threat to an idea, because forbidden thoughts may circulate in secret, but what can be done when an important fact is lost in a flood of impostors, and the voice of truth is drowned out by an ungodly din? When that voice, though freely resounding, cannot be heard because the technologies of information have led to a situation in which one can receive best the message of him who shouts the loudest, even when the most falsely?”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man's quest for knowledge is an expanding series whose limit is infinity, but philosophy seeks to attain that limit at one blow, by a short circuit providing the certainty of complete and inalterable truth. Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Futurologists have been multiplying like flies since the day Herman Kahn made Cassandra's profession "scientific," yet somehow not one of them has come out with the clear statement that we have wholly abandoned ourselves to the mercy of technological progress. The roles are now reversed: humanity becomes, for technology, a means, an instrument for achieving a goal unknown and unknowable.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Skepticism is like a microscope whose magnification is constantly increased: the sharp image that one begins with finally dissolves, because it is not possible to see ultimate things: their existence is only to be inferred.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance of the generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The year is 2098", he said, "with 69 billion inhabitants legally registered and approximately another 26 billion in hiding. The average annual temperature has fallen four degrees. In fifteen or twenty years there will be glaciers here. We have no way of averting or halting their advance - we can only keep them secret." "I always thought there would be ice in hell," I said. "And so you paint the gates with pretty pictures?”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the methods you employ are good, then what's the point of all this reasoning and argument? A few drops of credendium, a single squirt in the eyes, and I applaud your every word with enthusiasm, you have my full approval, my esteem. If those methods are good. Yet apparently you yourself are not convinced of their worth, preferring simple, old-fashioned hot air and rhetoric, wasting words on me instead of reaching for the atomizer! Apparently you're well aware that the triumph of psychem is a sham, and that you will be standing on the field alone, a conqueror with a bad case of heartburn.”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have fundamental reservations to this adaptation. First of all I would have liked to see the planet Solaris which the director unfortunately denied me as the film was to be a cinematically subdued work. And secondly — as I told Tarkovsky during one of our quarrels — he didn't make Solaris at all, he made Crime and Punishment. What we get in the film is only how this abominable Kelvin has driven poor Harey to suicide and then he has pangs of conscience which are amplified by her appearance; a strange and incomprehensible appearance. [...]”
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source