"...they bowed to the unknown, proclaiming the ancient doctrine, arrogantly resurrected, of ignoramus et ignorabimus." (p.22)
"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. 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. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world..." (p.72)
"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." (p.72)
"I put my arms round her and held fer with all my strength. Nothing mattered to me except her: everything else was meaningless." (p.107)
"A painful smile flickered over her face: 'Does that mean that I am...immortal?'" (p.144)
"If she disappears after the experiment, that will mean that I wanted her to disappear--that I killed her." (p.156)
"Man has gone out to explore other worlds without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed." (p.157)
"Was the ocean a living creature? It was no longer possible to deny the 'psychic' functions of the ocean, no matter how that term might be defined...The ocean lived, thought and acted." (p.171)
This portion on page 172 was extremely interesting and, as Kelvin discovers this old "calf-bound" book which seems to have been forgotten, we are reminded of Lucretius' work which was absent for a great many years. The message within is the same. Perhaps this is Lem's overt nod to Lucretius?
"According to Muntius (or Lucretius), Solaristics is the space era's equivalent of religion: faith disguised as science. Contact, the stated aim of Solaristics, is no less vague and obscure than the communion of the saints, or the second coming of the Messiah. The comparison is reinforced by obvious parallels: Solarists reject arguments--no experiences in common, no communicable notions--just as the faithful rejected the arguments that undermined the foundations of their belief." (p.172)
"Solaristics is a revival of long-vanished myths, the expression of mystical nostalgias which men are unwilling to confess openly." (p.173)
"'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is...a sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first.'" (p.197) One of the central Lucretian passages of the novel.
"'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'" (p.197)
"'Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him.'" (p.198)
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