philosophers-from-poland

"We travel faster, and yet it takes us longer to get to work. ...when we traveled with the speed of about 8 miles per hour it took us an average of about 5-10 minutes to get to work; when we traveled with the speed of about 25 miles per hour, it took us about 20 minutes; when we travel nowadays with the speed of about 55 miles per hour it takes an average of about 45 minutes to reach work. Is this progress, or an illusion of progress? ... No doubt we buy and “consume” more books, records, reproductions, but most of them have become mere commodities. We are bombarded with new information, but we acquire no new knowledge, let alone new experience. Is this progress, or an illusion of progress?"

"I'm sad, God!"

"I have a hundred hands, a hundred daggers... when I want, I will inflict a hundred wounds."

"Love - this light, this sky, this life!"

"Why does Słowacki arouse admiration and love in us? (…) Because, gentlemen, Słowacki was a great poet!"

"Maybe death will find me in this position."

"If only I could lead you to the cascade!"

"I lived with you, I grieved, and many a tear I shed. In truth, I never did a noble soul defy. Now it is time for me to go and join the dead. Seems like it's joy I leave on earth — so sad am I."

"I immersed myself in unhappy love with all my heart..."

"And I played... And I feel even sadder."

"Washing the entire skin with soap every day is the duty of everyone who wants to consider themselves human."

"What would he give to be able to be, with a clear conscience, a homosexual, an artist, a cocaine addict - in general, an "ist", it doesn't matter what type - he even envied sportsmen's sports mania. And he was just a complicated metaphysical masochist."

"Why, shadow, are you driving away with your arms broken into armor?"

"What have you done to Athens, Socrates?"

"Why do most people who absolutely shouldn't stink do stink?"

"I must live with everything I have been given, if I am ever unified, it means that I am holding all the scattered sparks that make me up."

"And could God, if he wanted to, create another God, the same - after all, he is omnipotent. Then he wouldn't be bored."

"Poles are a great nation and a worthless society."

"And yet it is good, everything is good. What? – maybe not? It's fine, damn it, and whoever says no, I'll punch him in the face!"

"The stones groaned silently. The ideal has hit the pavement."

"Polishness is bitter bread..."

"Bad, bad always and everywhere. This black thread is spinning: She is behind me, in front of me and next to me, She in every breath She in every smile She in tears, in prayer and in hymns..."

"Other than that, everything is shit – everything except philosophy, that is. Without her, I'd be just a piece of shit."

"There is nothing great and beautiful except death."

"For the country dear where but a crumb of bread Up from the ground with reverence we heave, Adoring thus the Boon by Heaven spread… O Lord I grieve…"

"You have to have great tact, To finish the third act. It's not an illusion - it's a fact."

"I hate her for having to love her so much."

"I want pretty women and lots of beer. And I can only drink two large ones and always with this Kaśka, always with this Kaśka - damn it!..."

"But I'm unlucky. Yesterday, when I was pissing in the forest and looking at the landscape, a horsefly bit me in the dick. It swelled up like a balloon and I thought it was going to fall off. But iodine and Staroniewicz saved this valuable utensils for future generations. Today it is only red, but maybe it will fall off. If it falls off, I will send it to you in formaldehyde."

"I want the Czarnolas thing!"

"Hell is merely the impossibility of love."

"And life could be so beautiful, so terribly cool: Kaśka and I, after a whole day of inhuman work, would have a big beer!"

"Society is a woman - it must have a male that rapes it."

"Whore in mayonnaise! What can such a poor guy not come up with! I have to try!"

"I despise everyone and I am so disgusted with the intellectual rabble that it makes me vomit."

"There are rumors about me, sucked from the big toe of someone's dirty leg."

"I would like to devote little time to proving or disproving the reality of these wonderful flying objects... but for those who have heard of saucers only by hearsay or read of them in the popular Sunday papers that would prove a little unsatisfactory, so I shall dedicate the first part of this book to an account of what has happened up to the time of writing."

"I take flying saucers extremely seriously; but I deplore pedantry and, like the ancient Toltecs, I find the serious things of life a cause for joy and pleasure rather than for pompous gloom."

"Although I quote less than two hundred incidents, these have been selected from nearly two thousand cuttings, reports, articles, manuscripts and ancient documents supplied to me by kind helpers from many countries... For the past eighteen months barely a single day has gone by without flying saucers being reported somewhere in the world... On some days there have been as many as ten different sightings in different places. And if a thing is seen daily, week after week, month after month, by ordinary people in free countries, then it follows that the thing in question must surely exist."

"For this latter notion we can thank those semi-scientists and self-appointed ‘experts’ who have simply failed to study the facts. Too many glib pontifications have been issued to the Faithful by those who should know better...to say, as their perpetrators say, that they cover all the cases on record is a flagrant untruth for which a Higher Justice may, or may not forgive them."

"Despite evidence to the contrary (and there is enough of it to fill many volumes), there is still a widespread notion...that flying saucers are some kind of American joke..that the mystery has already been cleared up...and that there is nothing more to worry about."

"I have devoted the last two and a half years solely to the investigation of this phenomenon: that I have studied thousands of cases and read reports both ancient and modern; that I have studied with an unbiased mind things which seemed possible, and things that seemed impossible, and that I feel as qualified to speak as any ‘expert’ who after a few weeks, or even days, of research calmly announces the once-and-for-all solution, and returns thence to his normal activities."

"On 21 June 1947... man named Dahl was out in the Tacoma Harbour Patrol boat near Maury Island. He looked up and saw six large disks about 2,000 feet above him. Five of them were slowly circling one that seemed to be in difficulties. Slowly they sank to within 500 feet of the sea, without a sound or whisper."

"It is the purpose of this book to find out just what that something could be the authorities do not wish us to know... The following chapters will present the findings as they came. A word in passing, and a warning. This book is neither intended for, nor humbly dedicated to, the statistician, nor anyone else who mistakes figures for facts, nor does it aim to please the followers of what is called Popular Science..."

"The American Government, however, on 25 September 1952 dropped the alarming hint that it accepts these phenomena but hints that it is not in the public interest for it to publish all it knows."

"Ever since the cliché ‘Flying Saucer’ was coined, the greatest and most exciting mystery of our age has been automatically reduced to the level of a music hall joke. The comics of Vaudeville and the comedians of State and Science banded together, most successfully, to encourage humanity in its oldest and easiest method of escape—to laugh at what it does not understand."

"On 24 June 1947, when Kenneth Arnold saw a fleet of ten shining circular disks whizzing along at a thousand miles per hour, darting in and out of the peaks around Mount Rainier, State of Washington, the news flashed round the world with the speed of light waves, and started the commotion we call flying saucers... from then on a steady stream of reports came in, mainly from trustworthy, observant citizens who had noticed that an early form of locomotion was once more active in the air. In spite of constant denials and quite unbelievable explanations, the governments of the world have gradually been forced to give their attention to the matter and to create secret departments for investigation."

"From then on, anyone who said ‘I have seen a flying saucer’ or, worse, ‘I believe in flying saucers’ was considered... a crank."

"Today, the American Government has dropped its original attitude of disbelief and admitted that it has over eighteen hundred authentic cases on its files. The British Air Ministry is more cautious, but grudgingly admits that it also has a secret department to deal with or to discourage questions."

"Two airline pilots, Adams and Anderson, were flying their D.C.3 the 130 miles from Memphis to Little Rock on the night of 31 March 1950 when a huge glowing flying saucer zoomed down at terrific speed to investigate them. On the central cupola there was a bright blue-white flashing light—either a signal or part of the propelling mechanism. And on the lower side, the airline pilots observed a row of eight or ten brilliantly lighted portholes. They thought they were portholes, but admitted that they could have been vents through which some kind of powerful energy was flowing."