Quotes from Stanis?aw Lem

No confiéis en aquellos de vosotros que consideran que única y simplemente anheláis la inmortalidad, porque aunque estén diciendo la verdad, no es esta sino superficial e incompleta. La inmortalidad del individuo no os saciaría. Siempre exigís más, aunque no seáis capaces de denominar el objeto de vuestro deseo.

no hay cosa que deseéis más que averiguar lo que no podéis averiguar! Pero qué le vamos a hacer.

Zum zweiten faszinierte euch das Denken, das so quälend nahe, weil in der Introspektion gegeben ist, und so rätselhaft, weil es sich eurem Zugriff wirksamer entzieht als die Sterne.

Kris . . . what do I have to do to put a stop to this?

Was thinking about consciousness possible? Yet could the process that took place in the ocean be regarded as thought? Is a mountain a very large rock? Is a planet a huge mountain?

Quien crece, nunca sabe de antemano si se adentra en un saco, en un túnel, o si penetra, sin posibilidad de retorno, en una zona de silencio; o si, en cambio, emergerá de ella aún más poderoso.

Es kann keinen Flug geben ohne vorangegangene Träume vom Fliegen.

El ser humano no es capaz de formular todos los conocimientos que debe a sus experiencias personales.

Once, a terribly important war never got declared, and all because the King, decked in spangles and crystal pendants, hung three days from the ceiling of the main hall and passed for a chandelier, holding his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at the ministers rushing about frantically below.

He looked on them with the same amused detachment as Einstein, in the waning years of his life, must have felt watching children at play in a sandbox.

This was how I saw it: the Senders definitely had had no intention of sending us a Pandora's box; but we, like burglars, forced the lock, and stamped upon the plundered contents everything that in Earth's science was mercenary, predatory.

Sì, tu non mi vuoi. L'ho sempre sentito: facevo finta di non accorgermene, pensavo che fosse solo una mia impressione, o che so io. E invece no. Ti comporti... in modo diverso. Non mi prendi sul serio. E' vero che era solo un sogno, però sognavi me. Mi chiamavi per nome. Mi detestavi. Perché? Perché?

Kryterium zdrowego rozsÄ…dku nie jest do historii ludzkiej stosowalne. Czy Averroes, Kant, Sokrates. Newton, Wolter, uwierzyliby, ?e w wieku dwudziestym plagÄ… miast, trucicielem pÅ'uc, masowym mordercÄ…, przedmiotem kultu stanie siÄ™ blaszany wózek na kóÅ'kach i ?e ludzie bÄ™dÄ… woleli gin?? w nim rozstrzaskiwani podczas masowych weekendowych wyjazdów, ani?eli siedzie? caÅ'o w domu?

People do not want immortality," I continued. "They simply do not want to die. They want to live, Decantor. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie.

Oh, miseria de la existencia humana que oscila eternamente entre la escasez y el exceso!».

I can see now that I had indeed lost a little of my common sense, my circumspection, and the coolness that comes from the directive of proceeding sine ira et studio—and that I had, with my speculations, shifted the "blame" from the unknown Senders onto humanity, incurable misanthrope that I was.

Matter vomited forth everything she could.

cybernetician.

Las imágenes de vuestra creación, así como de la mía propia, contienen —desde una perspectiva racional— una buena dosis de ridiculez, dado que la intención de la perfección que no logra su propósito es tanto más ridícula cuanta mayor sabiduría se haya empleado en ella. Por ese motivo, la tonterías expresadas por un filósofo resultan más amenas que las tonterías expresadas por un necio.

Among the maniacs things were more cheerful, a group of them sat by iron beds, playing on the springs like harps and singing in chorus; "We ain't got no ma or pa, 'cause we is au-tom-a-ta," also "Ro, ro, ro your bot, gently down the stream," and so forth.

What we hold to be the result of a malign intervention could only make sense as an ordinary miscalculation, as an error, but now we find ourselves in the realm of nonexistent theologies—that is, theologies of fallible gods.

Many pretenders to wisdom say that this is all trick and make-believe and nothing more, that there is no such thing as paleface cemeteries, doughy-nosed and gummy-eyed, and never was. Well, perhaps it was just another empty invention – there are certainly fables enough in this world. And yet, even if the story isn't true, it does have a grain of sense and instruction to it, and it's entertaining as well, so it's worth the telling.

Now, ignorant and backward persons will occasionally demand that you show them this configurational space of yours, apparently unaware that electrons, whose existence no one in his right mind would question, also move exclusively in configurational space, their comings and goings fully dependent on curves of probability. Though it is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least taken singly, won't try to make a meal of you.

Human beings set out to encounter other worlds, other civilizations, without having fully gotten to know their own hidden recesses, their blind alleys.