My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
The first 90% of the job takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% of the job requires another 90% of the time. The first condition of immortality is death. — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
“. . . according to Lem's Law, 'No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets' --… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
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… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places,… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
Psychoanalytic doctrine reveals the pig in man, a pig saddled with a conscience; the disastrous result is that the pig is uncomfortable beneath that… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our symptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter,… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
“What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good? Only good mind you. The rest had to… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
