Nina > Nina's Quotes

“Maybe the knowledge is too great and maybe men are growing too small,’ said Lee. ‘Maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they’re becoming atom-sized in their souls. Maybe a specialist is only a coward afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses - the whole world over his fence.”
― John Steinbeck

“Look, look,' cried the count, seizing the young man's hands - "look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die - like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? - do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment - that another partook of his anguish - that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man - man, who God created in his own image - man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbour - man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts - what is his first cry when he hears his fellowman is saved? A blasphemy. Honour to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“- Там, где мы только что были, всё очень индивидуально. Там нет ничего, что существовало бы, что называется на самом деле. Всё зависит от того, кто на это смотрит. Для меня всё вокруг залито ослепительно-ярким светом. А для моих ребят, вокруг то же самое, что видите вы. Точнее, это для вас вокруг то же самое, что видя они.
- Почему?
- Знаете, что такое визуализация? Когда множество верующих начинает молиться какому-нибудь богу, он действительно возникает, причём именно в той форме, в какой его представляют.
Но то же самое относится ко всему остальному. Мир, где мы живём, - просто коллективная визуализация, делать которую нас обучают с рождения.”
― Victor Pelevin, Чапаев и Пустота

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. they say it closely resembles death.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky, Solaris

“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. 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. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“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, Solaris

“What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'

'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“We’re not searching for anything except people. We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Было так сыро и туманно, что насилу рассвело…”
― Федор Достоевский, Идиот

“Прощай, князь, в первый раз человека видела!”
― Федор Достоевский, Идиот

“Сострадание есть главнейший и, может быть, единственный закон бытия всего человечества.”
― Достоевский Ф.М., The Idiot

“ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάντατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες

(Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life.)”
― Heraclitus