"What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance of the generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling."
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Science fiction authorsJews from PolandPhilosophers from PolandEssayists from PolandSatirists from Poland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ch. 17
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem
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Stanisław Lem
1921 – 2006
polnischer Schriftsteller
79 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Stanisław Lem →
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