"Once again the universe was spread far out before him and it was a different and in some ways a better universe, a more diagrammatic universe, and in time, he knew, if there were such a thing as time, he'd gain some completer understanding and acceptance of it. He probed and sensed and learned and there was no such thing as time, but a great foreverness. He thought with pity of those others locked inside the ship, safe behind its insulating walls, never knowing all the glories of the innards of a star or the vast panoramic sweep of vision and of knowing far above the flat galactic plane. Yet he really did not know what he saw or probed; he merely sensed and felt it and became a part of it, and it became a part of him — he seemed unable to reduce it to a formal outline of fact or of dimension or of content. It still remained a knowledge and a power so overwhelming that it was nebulous. There was no fear and no wonder, for in this place, it seemed, there was neither fear nor wonder. And he finally knew that it was a place apart, a world in which the normal space-time knowledge and emotion had no place at all and a normal space-time being could have no tools or measuring stick by which he might reduce it to a frame of reference. There was no time, no space, no fear, no wonder — and no actual knowledge, either."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesEditors from the United StatesPeople from Wisconsin
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
“All the Traps of Earth” (p. 165); originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1960
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Clifford D. Simak
Clifford Donald Simak (3 August 1904 – 25 April 1988) was an American science fiction writer, and a winner of several Hugo and Nebula awards.
133 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Clifford D. Simak →
Related Quotes
"He shuddered as he thought of it, for if this should be the case, they had spent their centuries of devotion to but l…"
"I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been co…"
"As he looked, Sutton felt the cold hand of loneliness reach down with icy fingers to take him in its grip. For here w…"
"They are worse than the disinherited. They are not the has-beens, they are the never-weres."
"“You do not belong to any bona fide religion that prohibits killing?” “I presume I could classify myself as a Christi…"
"The chain of life runs smoothly from one generation to the next and none of the links stand out except here and there…"
"There is mystery here, but a soft, sure mystery that is understood and only remains a mystery because I want it so. T…"
"I have not long to live. I have lasted more than a man’s average allotted span, and while I still am hale and hearty,…"
"I’m just a propagandist and a propagandist doesn’t have to know what he is talking about, just so he talks about it m…"
"When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life wh…"