Stanislaw Quotes & Sayings

There are few persons of greater worth than their reputation; but how many are there whose worth is far short of their reputation! — Stanislaw Leszczynski

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. — Stanislaw Lem

Evolution is, as an engineer, an opportunist, not a perfectionist. — Stanislaw Lem

Only a hundred years ago the idea that an order might arise without a personal Author appeared so nonsensical to you that it inspired seemingly absurd jokes, like the one about the pack of monkeys hammering away at typewriters until the Encyclopedia Britannica emerged. I recommend that you devote some of your free time to compiling an anthology of just such jokes, which amused your forebears as pure nonsense but now turn out to be parables of Nature. — Stanislaw Lem

For moral reasons ... the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created ... intentionally. — Stanislaw Lem

I don't resist progress, but I have a growing feeling that mankind uses it mostly for disgraceful purposes. — Stanislaw Lem

Wounds heal and become scars, but scars grow with us. — Joseph Stanislaw

Don't trust the heart, it wants your blood. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It's the priests who have demands, not the gods. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something else. — Stanislaw Ulam

Impartiality is not neutrality. It is partiality for justice. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

A journey is a dismal thing when there can be no homecoming. — Stanislaw Lem

Do I believe? God only knows. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

We understand everything; that is why we understand nothing. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

For what are myths if not the imposing of order on phenomena that do not possess order in themselves? And all myths, however they differ from philosophical systems and scientific theories, share this with them, that they negate the principle of randomness in the world. — Stanislaw Lem

Even his ignorance is encyclopedic. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands of millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint ... a symphony ... but we lack the ears to hear it. — Stanislaw Lem

Do not make gods in your own images. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Create your own myths; that is how the gods got started. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It's what we wanted: contact with another civilization. We have it, this contact! Our own monstrous ugliness, our own buffoonery and shame, magnified as if it was under a microscope! — Stanislaw Lem

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

A man who is a genius and doesn't know it, probably isn't. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Men have slow reflexes. In general it takes several generations later for them to understand. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Above the podium stood a decorated board showing the agenda for the day. The first item of business was the world urban crisis, the second - the ecology crisis, the third - the air pollution crisis, the fourth - the energy crisis, the fifth - the food crisis. Then adjournment. — Stanislaw Lem

Perfect imitations must share the fate of the originals. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

The other hand neither was he a man, nor any sapient proteinoid of the glutinous-albuminous variety. The head was round and plump, with red cheeks, but for eyes it had two penny whistles, and for ears it had thuribles, which gave off a thick cloud of incense. He was dressed — Stanislaw Lem

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Come now, Tichy. For half a century civilization hasn't been left to its own devices. A hundred years ago a certain Dior was dictating fashions in clothing. Today this sort of regulating has embraced all walks of life. If prostheticism is voted in, I assure you, in a couple of years everyone will consider the possession of a soft, hairy, sweating body to be shameful and indecent. A body needs washing, deodorizing, caring for, and even then it breaks down, while in a prostheticized society you can snap on the loveliest creations of modern engineering. What woman doesn't want to have silver iodide instead of eyes, telescoping breasts, angel's wings, iridescent legs, and feet that sing with every step? — Stanislaw Lem

Illiterates have to dictate. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

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 what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed. — Stanislaw Lem

Ants that encounter in their path a dead philosopher may make good use of him. — Stanislaw Lem

Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. (tr. by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox) — Stanislaw Lem

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. — Stanislaw Lem

I always thought there would be ice in hell — Stanislaw Lem

She was beautiful all right, beautiful in a way that was at once seductive, demonic, and raspberry. — Stanislaw Lem

A sweet thing, perspective - a chance to see your enemies so small. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could build anything beginning with the letter 'n'. — Stanislaw Lem

A tired exclamation mark is a question mark. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Sometimes I feel that a more rational explanation for all that has happened during my lifetime is that I am still only thirteen years old, reading Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, and have fallen asleep. — Stanislaw Ulam

The weakest link in a chain is the strongest because it can break it. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Genius speaks only to genius. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

It's true that even though I'm a world unto myself, I've just a speck of dust in the avalanche of events. But nothing will ever force me to think like a speck of dust! — Stanislaw Lem

For truly, what computer has not asked whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous instructions? — Stanislaw Lem

One has to multiply thoughts to the point where there aren't enough policemen to control them — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It is having in some measure a sort of wit to know how to use the wit of others. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

The first condition of immortality is death. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets. — Stanislaw Lem

What do I believe? I believe in God, if he exists. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

There is not eternal damnation, the only rewards and punishments are right here in this world. — Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz

Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each non-existed in an entirely different way. — Stanislaw Lem

We rise to fortune by successive steps; we descend by only one. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

The war of good and evil present in all religions does not always end, in every faith, with the victory of good, but in every one it establishes a clear order of existence. The sacred as well as the profane rests on that universal order ... — Stanislaw Lem

None are rash when they are not seen by anybody. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

There is a dispute about the existence of God. Both sides try to hide that they killed Him - even before He came into being. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

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. — Stanislaw Lem

The mob shouts with one big mouth and eats with a thousand little ones. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

The moment of recognizing your own lack of talent is a flash of genius. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

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

It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist. — Stanislaw Ulam

People make filthy things with the freedom they regained. — Stanislaw Lem

And yet we knew, for a certainty, that when first emissaries of Earth went walking among the planets, Earth's other sons would be dreaming not about such expeditions but about a piece of bread. — Stanislaw Lem

He who limps is still walking. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It was not so much that I was doing mathematics, but rather that mathematics had taken possession of me. — Stanislaw Ulam

It has been said that a specialist is a barbarian whose ignorance is not well-rounded — Stanislaw Lem

Every scarecrow has a secret ambition to terrorize. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

No-one has held back. They have put some definition around the numbers and now we have to wait for the reality. — Joseph Stanislaw

If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently — Stanislaw Lem

Conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as a judge. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

Do I have no soul as punishment for not believing in the soul? — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

I wanted to stop her; in the darkness and silence we occasionally managed to throw off our despair for a while by making each other forget. — Stanislaw Lem

Everything is illusion. Even that last sentence. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

He [John von Neumann] had the invaluable faculty of being able to take the most difficult problem and separate it into its components, whereupon everything looked brlliantly simple. — Stanislaw Ulam

Among giants, try and be a dwarf; among dwarfs, try and be a giant; but among equals, try and be an equal — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

All Gods were immortal. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Do not turn your back on anyone. You may be painted on one side only. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

It would be indeed unusual if it turned out that the set of orders that our mind is able to construct and accept, having as it does a deep sense of "understanding the essence of things," matches precisely the set of all possible orders to be detected in the Universe as a whole. We should admit that this is not impossible, yet it does seem highly improbable. This way of thinking, so modest in its assessment of our abilities, is probably the only way recommended, given our lack of knowledge, because we are not aware of our limitations. — Stanislaw Lem

We are usually mistaken in esteeming men too much; rarely in esteeming them too little. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

The spirit of the times can haunt even the atheists. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Then what exactly is it that you design?"
He gave a proud smile.
"Bitless compositions."
"Bitless? You mean, from bits, the units of information?"
"No, Mr. Tichy, the units of being bitten. — Stanislaw Lem

Stupidity is no excuse of not thinking. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

At the beginning there was the Word; at the end just the Cliche. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Believers believe in resurrection, atheists only in comebacks. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

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

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

When the truth offends no one it should come from our lips as naturally as the air we breathe. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

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

Morality is either a social contract or you have to pay cash. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Man is fatally slow on the uptake; it always takes him until the next generation to understand what's going on. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

In just the last issue of Science Today there had been an article on some new psychotropic agents of the group of so-called benignimizers (the N,N-dimethylpeptocryptomides), which induced states of undirected joy and beatitude. Yes, yes! I could practically see that article now. Hedonidil, Euphoril, Inebrium, Felicitine, Empathan, Ecstasine, Halcyonal and a whole spate of derivatives. Though by replacing an amino group with a hydroxyl, you obtained instead Furiol, Antagonil, Rabiditine, Sadistizine, Dementium, Flagellan, Juggernol and many other polyparanoidal stimulants of the group of so-called phrensobarbs (for these prompted the most vicious behavior, the lashing out at objects animate as well as inanimate - and especially powerful here were the cannibal-cannabinols and manicomimetics). — Stanislaw Lem

The instability of our tastes is the occasion of the irregularity of our lives. — Stanislaw Leszczynski

There is only one positive role of the Nobel prize
it creates some common way to understand a writer. I cannot say, that I like this situation, but that's the way it goes. The books are being born and then walk around the world, just as children do. — Stanislaw Lem

Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter - for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. — Stanislaw Lem

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. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? — Stanislaw Lem

A man can control only what he comprehends, and comprehend only what he is able to put into words. The inexpressible therefore is unknowable. By examining future stages in the evolution of language we come to learn what discoveries, changes and social revolutions the language will be capable, some day, of reflecting. — Stanislaw Lem

I didn't believe for a minute that this liquid colossus, which had brought about the death of hundreds of humans within itself, with which my entire race had for decades been trying in vain to establish at least a thread of communication - that this ocean, lifting me up unwittingly like a speck of dust, could be moved by the tragedy of two human beings. But — Stanislaw Lem

I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet. — Stanislaw Lem

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

Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less. — Stanislaw Ulam

A world compelled to good alone is as much a shrine to compulsion as a world compelled to evil only.
The Twenty-first Voyage — Stanislaw Lem