This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.
Interpretation
The quote reflects humanity's quest for understanding and idealism rather than the acceptance of reality.
Stanislaw Lem's quote emphasizes the human tendency to seek out ideals and develop notions of a better world, often rooted in our own imperfections. It suggests that instead of appreciating our own existence and its realities, we yearn for an imagined version of it that could reflect a perfected self, particularly in the context of other civilizations or worlds. This pursuit indicates a level of dissatisfaction with the present and embodies a philosophical inquiry into human nature and our collective dreams.
In practice
In a debate on human aspirations, this quote can be used to emphasize our pursuit of ideal worlds.
The only writers who have any peace are the ones who don't write. And there are some like that. They wallow in a sea of possibilities. To express a thought, you first have to limit it, and that means kill it. Every word I speak robs me of a thousand others, and every line I write means giving up another.
We didn't know each other well. I never had the time. Now I see that it doesn't make any difference. The ones who hurry and the ones who take their time all end up in the same place. Just don't have any regrets. No regrets.
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.
We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.
No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.
A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.
I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don't have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions.
It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever.
Buddha's doctrine: Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent...this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
We should realize in a vivid and revolutionary sense that we are not in our bodies but our bodies are in us.
To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.
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