“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.”
Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Context: 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 seaching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation 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 any more.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Stanisław Lem 74
Polish science fiction author 1921–2006Related quotes

" The World I'm Working To Create", Skoll World Forum (12 August 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ILV4IL-PA

“Who knows what the potential of our world is, but we all need to help each other.”

“We need each other. All of us, we need each other. We don't have a person to waste.”
"A Place Called Hope" (July 16, 1992)
1990s, A Place Called Hope (16 July 1992)
Context: It is time to heal America. And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other. All of us, we need each other. We don't have a person to waste. And yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us. Them. Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays. We've gotten to where we've nearly "them"ed ourselves to death. Them and them and them. But this is America. There is no them; there's only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Michael Franti Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s75CPceiCw&feature=related

“We say to others only what we need to hear.”
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)