Take a good look at this world, how riddled it is with huge, gaping holes, how full of Nothingness, the Nothingness that fills the bottomless void between the stars, how everything about us has become lined with it, how it darkly lurks behind each shred of matter. This is your work, envious one! And I hardly think the future generations will bless you for it...
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The passage personifies the absence of matter as a destructive force that shapes the universe and criticizes it for this void.
- In plain terms
- The universe is full of empty space which is presented as a harmful work.
- What can you take from it?
- Absence and void define the structure of existence.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is absence a force or just lack?
- Who is responsible for the void in the universe?
Another view
Portraying void as malicious is a subjective interpretation.
More from Stanislaw Lem
'One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could build anything beginning with the letter 'n'.'
Permalink to quote #16 Come, let us hasten to a higher plane Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
Permalink to quote #18 Finis vitae sed non amoris
Permalink to quote #15
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