Quotes by Polish Authors - Page 14

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.
Stanisław Lem
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
You thought?" The landsknecht glanced at him piteously. "With what, I wonder? If you swallowed a cockroach with your soap, dolt, you'd have more intelligence in your guts than in your head.
Sapkowski
It's delicious,’ he announces, chewing my sandwich. 'I would like to stay here forever and die with you in my arms.' 'I don't know. I think it's too cold for forever,' I say, smiling.
Joanna Mazurkiewicz
If we do not objectify, and feel instinctively and permanently that words are not the things spoken about, then we could not speak abouth such meaningless subjects as the 'beginning' or the 'end' of time. But, if we are semantically disturbed and objectify, then, of course, since objects have a beginning and an end, so also would 'time' have a 'beggining' and an 'end'. In such pathological fancies the universe must have a 'beginning in time' and so must have been made., and all of our old anthropomorphic and objectified mythologies follow, including the older theories of entropy in physics. But, if 'time' is only a human form of representation and not an object, the universe has no 'beginning in time' and no 'end in time'; in other words, the universe is 'time'-less. The moment we realize, feel permanently, and utilize these realizations and feelings that words are not things, then only do we acquire the semantic freedom to use different forms of representation. We can fit better their structure to the facts at hand, become better adjusted to these facts which are not words, and so evaluate properly m.o (multi-ordinal) realities, which evaluation is important for sanity.
Alfred Korzybski
She knew half of the correspondents had broken under the excruciating pressure. And the other half who said they had made it, simply lied. She also knew there was a good chance she would too. But it was still worth it. Because if Viola wanted anything approaching a deeper meaning, she knew it existed in moments filled with injustice and cruelty. That’s where true human nature lay for her. Not because of the ferocity itself but because of what came with it, true human heart and compassion.
Piotr Ryczko
An individual cannot be considered entirely sane of he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and structure of nature and so retains primitive semantic reactions.
Alfred Korzybski
That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to the pertinent answer.
Jacob Bronowski
An individual cannot be considered entirely sane if he is wholly ignorant of scientific method and structure of nature and so retains primitive semantic reactions.
Alfred Korzybski
We are nature's unique experiment to make the rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex. Knowledge is our destiny
Jacob Bronowski
Dogmatic theology is, by its very nature, unchangeable. The same can be said in regard to the spirit of the law. Law was and is to protect the past and present status of society and, by its very essence, must be very conservative, if not reactionary. Theology and law are both of them static by their nature.Philosophy, law and ethics, to be effective in a dynamic world must be dynamic; they must be made vital enough to keep pace with the progress of life and science. In recent civilization ethics, because controlled by theology and law, which are static, could not duly influence the dynamic, revolutionary progress of technic and the steadily changing conditions of life; and so we witness a tremendous downfall of morals in politics and business. Life progresses faster than our ideas, and so medieval ideas, methods and judgments are constantly applied to the conditions and problems of modern life. This discrepancy between facts and ideas is greatly responsible for the dividing of modern society into different warring classes, which do not understand each other. Medieval legalism and medieval morals- the basis of the old social structure-being by their nature conservative, reactionary, opposed to change, and thus becoming more and more unable to support the mighty social burden of the modern world, must be adjudged responsible in a large measure for the circumstances which made the World War inevitable.
Alfred Korzybski
Indeed neither life nor science bothers about "essences"-they leave "essences" to metaphysics, which is neither life nor science.
Alfred Korzybski
Those ignorant "masters of our destinies" who regard humans as animals or as monstrous hybrids of natural and supernatural must be dethroned by scientific education.Humans can be literally poisoned by false ideas and false teachings. Many people have a just horror at the thought of putting poison into tea or coffee, but seem unable to realize that, when they teach false ideas and false doctrines, they are poisoning the time-binding capacity of their fellow men and women. One has to stop and think!
Alfred Korzybski
Philosophy, as defined by Fichte, is the "science of sciences." Its aim was to solve the problems of the world. In the past, when all exact sciences were in their infancy, philosophy had to be purely speculative, with little or no regard to realities. But if we regard philosophy as a Mother science, divided into many branches, we find that those branches have grown so large and various, that the Mother science looks like a hen with her little ducklings paddling in a pond, far beyond her reach; she is unable to follow her growing hatchlings. In the meantime, the progress of life and science goes on, irrespective of the cackling of metaphysics. Philosophy does not fulfill her initial aim to bring the results of experimental and exact sciences together and to solve world problems. Through endless, scientific specialization scientific branches multiply, and for want of coordination the great world-problems suffer. This failure of philosophy to fulfill her boasted mission of scientific coordination is responsible for the chaos in the world of general thought. The world has no collective or organized higher ideals and aims, nor even fixed general purposes. Life is an accidental game of private or collective ambitions and greeds.
Alfred Korzybski
I remembered the old doctor, - "It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot." I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.
Joseph Conrad
Science, like art, is not a copy of nature but a re-creation of her.
Jacob Bronowski
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.
Stanisław Lem
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
You thought?" The landsknecht glanced at him piteously. "With what, I wonder? If you swallowed a cockroach with your soap, dolt, you'd have more intelligence in your guts than in your head.
Sapkowski
It's delicious,’ he announces, chewing my sandwich. 'I would like to stay here forever and die with you in my arms.' 'I don't know. I think it's too cold for forever,' I say, smiling.
Joanna Mazurkiewicz
If we do not objectify, and feel instinctively and permanently that words are not the things spoken about, then we could not speak abouth such meaningless subjects as the 'beginning' or the 'end' of time. But, if we are semantically disturbed and objectify, then, of course, since objects have a beginning and an end, so also would 'time' have a 'beggining' and an 'end'. In such pathological fancies the universe must have a 'beginning in time' and so must have been made., and all of our old anthropomorphic and objectified mythologies follow, including the older theories of entropy in physics. But, if 'time' is only a human form of representation and not an object, the universe has no 'beginning in time' and no 'end in time'; in other words, the universe is 'time'-less. The moment we realize, feel permanently, and utilize these realizations and feelings that words are not things, then only do we acquire the semantic freedom to use different forms of representation. We can fit better their structure to the facts at hand, become better adjusted to these facts which are not words, and so evaluate properly m.o (multi-ordinal) realities, which evaluation is important for sanity.
Alfred Korzybski
I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time—
Joseph Conrad
There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world, space is by far the less mysterious. . . . Space is, after all, solid, monolithic. . . . Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would say even against human nature.
Stanisław Lem
So one must 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? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Stanisław Lem
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
John Paul II
If Elirena was a hero, if what she did is heroism, then that's just too bad. Let them call me a traitor and a coward. Because I, Yarpen Zigrin, coward, traitor and renegade, state that we should not kill each other. I state that we ought to live. Live in such a way that we don't, later, have to ask anyone for forgiveness. The Heroic Elirena... She had to ask. Forgive me, she begged, forgive me. To hell with that! It's better to die than to live in the knowledge that you've done something that needs forgiveness.
Andrzej Sapkowski
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning. One after another my former lives were departing, like ships, together with their sorrow. And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas assigned to my brush came closer, ready now to be described better than they were before.
Czesław Miłosz
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
Marie Curie
It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.
Jacob Bronowski
It’s entirely on our children to build their best futures. Not on us, parents. And we should be imprinting this message on our children’s brains from as early as possible.
Lukasz Laniecki
Parents like to think of themselves as Batmans, and of their children as Gotham Cities. Gotham City depends on Batman for its survival, and Batman delivers. This belief prevents parents from letting those young adults actually live their lives.
Lukasz Laniecki
It’s not their (parents’) job to prevent their children from making mistakes, because mistakes are a normal part of our lives. It’s like preventing those children from having a real experience. A real life.
Lukasz Laniecki
If parents want “success stories” to share at gatherings they should provide themselves with those, and they should not use their children for that purpose.
Lukasz Laniecki
They know a lot, but they don’t know everything, and they can’t advise you on anything.They can only tell you what they believe worked / or didn’t work for them.
Lukasz Laniecki
Mistakes are part of life. And yet, for some reason, most parents in this world, wish their children made no mistakes at all, or as little as possible.
Lukasz Laniecki
We feel stuck in a rut, unable to say ‘no’ to our parents, unable to put an end to their controlling behavior, unable to grab hold of our own lives, simply because we fear that we will hurt, insult, disrespect or disappoint our parents (entire families).
Lukasz Laniecki
Believing that there is a conflict between rationality and spirituality is like believing that there is a conflict between knowledge and inspiration.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
Failure to find the truth is perhaps an intellectual defeat, but failure to look for the truth is an intellectual surrender.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
I no longer know what the Lord wants of us... Even what we're doing here seems pointless to me! What's the use of the books I've brought with me? All those bookcases in the house? The things we learn, the things we discuss? Not so long ago, I was convinced that cultivating our minds would help us change the course of this world. I told myself, 'We women should change. Then we might be able to curb the folly of men.' I don't believe that now. As soon as I leave Magdala, as soon as I spend a day in the streets of Tarichea, I get the feeling we're becoming more and more learned and more and more useless.
Marek Halter
We humans, through old habits, and because of the inherent structure of human knowledge have a tendency to make static, definite, and, in a way, absolutistic one-valued statements. But when we fight absolutism, we quite often establish, instead, some other dogma equally silly and harmful. For instance, an active atheist is psycho-logically as unsound as a rabid theist.
Alfred Korzybski
Wandering across the vast room, I stopped at a set of shelves as high as the ceiling, and holding about six hundred volumes - all classics on the history of Soalris, starting with the nine volumes of Giese's monumental and already relatively obsolescent monograph. Display for its own sake was improbable in these surroundings. The collection was a respective tribute to the memory of the pioneers. I took down the massive volumes of Giese and sat leafing through them. Rheya had also located som reading matter. Looking over her shoulder, I saw that she had picked one of the many books brought out by the first expedition, the Interplanetary Cookery Book, which could have been the personal property of Giese himself. She was pouring over the recipes adapted to the arduous conditions of interstellar flight. I said nothing, and returned to the book resting on my knees. Solaris - Ten Years of Exploration had appeared as volumes 4-12 of the Solariana collection whose most recent additions were numbered in the thousands.
Stanisław Lem
The Search for reason ends at the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the ineffable can glide. It alone knows the route to that which is remote from experience and understanding. Neither of them is amphibious: reason cannot go beyond the shore, and the sense of the ineffable is out of place where we measure, where we weigh. We do not leave the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions. We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore. Citizens of two realms, we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, we name and exploit reality in another. Between the two we set up a system of references, but we can never fill the gap. They are as far and as close to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody, as life and what lies beyond the last breath.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.
Joseph Conrad
Know what you are talking about.
John Paul II
They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.
Joseph Conrad
The prayer of a trained theurgist is like the majestic flow of a large river but an ignorant and weak person can produce only something similar to an irregular trickle from a half-clogged tap.
Mouni Sadhu
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.
Czesław Miłosz
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
John Paul II
W jakimś sensie takie osoby jak ona, te, które władają piórem, bywają niebezpieczne. Narzuca się od razu podejrzenie fałszu - że taka osoba nie jest sobą, tylko okiem, które bezustannie patrzy, a to, co widzi, zamienia w zdania; w ten sposób okrawa rzeczywistość ze wszystkiego, co w niej najważniejsze, z niewyrażalności.
Olga Tokarczuk
Man knows, and in the course of years he comes to know it increasingly well, feeling it ever more acutely, that memory is weak and fleeting, and if he doesn't write down what he has learned and experienced, that which he carries within him will perish when he does. This is when it seems everyone wants to write a book. Singers and football players, politicians and millionaires. And if they themselves do not know how, or else lack the time, they commission someone else to do it for them...engendering this reality is the impression of writing as a simple pursuit, though those who subscribe to that view might do well to ponder Thomas Mann's observation that, 'a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others
Ryszard Kapuściński
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
Joseph Conrad
Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.
Joseph Conrad
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.
Leo Rosten
Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.
Sholem Asch
The joy of writing.The power of preserving.Revenge of a mortal hand.
Wisława Szymborska
To us, recollection is a holy act; we sanctify the present by remembering the past. To us Jews, the essence of faith is memory. To believe is to remember.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
-I haven't been writing for years. I lost faith. it's not for me. Too many levels.-What levels?-All those levels of existence. us down here, and up there, high above us. the ceiling of the universe. I've chosen nothingness.
Tadeusz Konwicki
Prophet,' he said, 'Your doctrines I do not know; therefore if I accepted them, I would do it out of fear like a coward and a base man. Are you anxious that your faith be professed by cowards and base people?
Henryk Sienkiewicz