Darkness Quote by Olaf Stapledon
““Sitting there on the heather, on our planetary grain, I shrank from the abysses that opened up on every side, and in the future. The silent darkness, the featureless unknown, were more dread than all the terrors that imagination had mustered. Peering, the mind could see nothing sure, nothing in all human experience to be grasped as certain, except uncertainty itself; nothing but obscurity gendered by a thick haze of theories. Man's science was a mere mist of numbers; his philosophy but a fog of words. His very perception of this rocky grain and all its wonders was but a shifting and a lying apparition. Even oneself, that seeming-central fact, was a mere phantom, so deceptive, that the most honest of men must question his own honesty, so insubstantial that he must even doubt his very existence.””
About This Quote
Source Book: Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, 1937
The passage reflects existential dread and epistemic uncertainty when confronting the vast unknown, suggesting that both science and philosophy are limited and that even personal identity is questionable.
In simple terms: Facing the unknown reveals how little we truly know, even about ourselves.
Key Takeaway
Embrace humility and question assumptions.
Themes
existentialism
uncertainty
epistemology
identity
cosmology
Mood
thoughtful
introspective
somber
Type
philosophical
reflective
existential
When to use this quote
- space exploration
- philosophical reflection
- personal crisis
- academic debate
Key Concepts
philosophical skepticism
cosmic perspective
ontological doubt
Questions to Reflect On
- How do we find meaning amid uncertainty?
- Can we trust our perceptions?
A Different Perspective
Human knowledge is provisional and can be misleading.
![“No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet, could have guessed that this bland orb [Earth] teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.” quote by Olaf Stapledon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d65/olaf-stapledon-9950_angel_no-visiting-angel-or-explorer-from-anoth_12107.jpg)
![“[S]ervants of darkness had no lasting joy in their service. In all of them the will for darkness was a perversion of the will for the light. In all but a few maniacs the satisfaction of the will for darkness was at all times countered by a revulsion which the unhappy spirit either dared not…” quote by Olaf Stapledon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/de9/olaf-stapledon-9950_all-time_s-ervants-of-darkness-had-no-lasting-joy_509336.jpg)
