“Plenitude, when too plenitudinous, was worse than destitution, for — obviously — what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?”
In "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", §4
The Cyberiad (1967)
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Stanisław Lem 74
Polish science fiction author 1921–2006Related quotes

“One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”
General sources
Source: "Birches" (1920)
Context: I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Source: 1980s, The Ecstasy of Communication (1987), p. 67

“There’s nothing worse than the British in one of their fits of morality.”
On the expenses scandal in the UK.
Quoted in Pink News http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12560.html
This is a variation on a line from Lord Macaulay's 'On Moore's Life of Lord Byron' (1830): 'We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.'
2000s
