Lec Quotes

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?

Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.

He who limps is still walking.

The greater the dark, the easier to be a star.

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand

On the top of each peak you are on the edge of the abyss

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar

In a war of ideas it is people who get killed.

I am against using death as a punishment. I am also against using it as a reward.

He had a clear conscience. Never used it.

Don't trust the heart, it wants your blood.

Even his ignorance is encyclopedic.

Even the masochists tell everything when tortured. From sheer gratitude.

All is in the hands of man. Therefore wash them often.

When smashing monuments, save the pedestals -- they always come in handy.

First, we are born in the same galaxy. Born of the same spe­cies. Our life­times over­lap. The meet­ings between humans are so unlikely as to be mira­cu­lous. To laugh, to cry, and to fall in love. Every­one is made up of a col­lec­tion of 1% chances. Thus, I am dazzled by the fact that there are so many mir­acles in this world.

The constitution of a country should not violate the constitutions of its citizens.

Hay smells different to lovers and horses.

An empty envelope that is sealed contains a secret.

Everything is illusion. Even that last sentence.

Oh, to be old again,” said the young corpse.

Every stink that fights the ventilator thinks it is Don Quixote.

Satirists, be careful. In the 1931 film by Rene Clair “Vive la Liberte” a song says, “Work is freedom.” In 1940 the sign on the gates to Auschwitz said: “Arbeit macht frei.

Do not expect too much of the end of the world.

Their bodies were so close together that there was no room for real affection.

We understand everything; that is why we understand nothing.

Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.

Even the voice of conscience undergoes mutation.

A funny word. E-lec-tion. Say it very slowly and it sounds disgusting. But if you say it just fast enough it almost sounds real, like it might even be legitimate

Ich stimme mit der Mathematik nicht überein. Ich meine, dass die Summe von Nullen eine gefährliche Zahl ist.

Politics: a Trojan horse race.

Sumienie miał czyste. Nieużywane

J'ai rencontré quelqu'un qui avait si peu lu qu'il devait inventer lui-même ses citations de classiques.

Do not ask God the way to heaven; he will show you the hardest one.

In Ländern, deren Bürger sich in Gefängnissen nicht sicher fühlen, fühlt man sich in der Freiheit ebenso unsicher.

Those who are ahead of their time often have to wait for it in uncomfortable quarters.

All his life there was only one thing Lec was allowed to believe. It had surrounded him, cocooned him, constricted him with the same stifling softness as the layers of insulation around him now. For the first time in his life, Lev feels those bounds around his soul begin to loosen.

En el principio era el Verbo y en el final el lugar común.

Den Blick in die Welt kann man mit einer Zeitung versperren.

If you are not a psychiatrist, stay away from idiots.

You can change your faith without changing gods, and vice versa.

Vergessen wir nicht, dass auch uns die Bakterien - von der anderen Seite des Mikroskops - betrachten.

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. —Stanislaw J. Lec

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” S. J. LEC

La Lo­te­ría, con su re­par­to se­ma­nal de enor­mes pre­mios, era el único acon­te­ci­mien­to pú­bli­co al que los pro­les pres­ta­ban ver­da­de­ra aten­ción. Era pro­ba­ble que hu­bie­se mi­llo­nes de pro­les para quie­nes la Lo­te­ría fuese la razón prin­ci­pal, si no la única, para se­guir con vida. Era su de­lei­te, su lo­cu­ra, su anal­gé­si­co, su es­ti­mu­lan­te in­te­lec­tual. En lo que se re­fe­ría a la Lo­te­ría, hasta quie­nes ape­nas sa­bían leer y es­cri­bir eran ca­pa­ces de lle­var a cabo in­trin­ca­dos cálcu­los y sor­pren­den­tes lo­gros me­mo­rís­ti­cos. Había toda una tribu de in­di­vi­duos que se ga­na­ban la vida ven­dien­do sis­te­mas, pre­dic­cio­nes y amu­le­tos de la suer­te. Wins­ton no tenía nada que ver con la Lo­te­ría, que se ges­tio­na­ba desde el Mi­nis­te­rio de la Abun­dan­cia, pero sabía (como cual­quier otro miem­bro del Par­ti­do) que los pre­mios eran casi todos ima­gi­na­rios. Solo se pa­ga­ban pe­que­ñas sumas y los ga­na­do­res de los pre­mios gor­dos en reali­dad no exis­tían. En au­sen­cia de ver­da­de­ra co­mu­ni­ca­ción entre una parte de Ocea­nía y otra, no re­sul­ta­ba di­fí­cil ama­ñar­lo.

Das Leben zwingt den Menschen zu allerlei freiwilligen Handlungen.

Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world.

If one is seeking for Heaven on earth, has slept in geography class.

Замисли се, преди да си помислиш!

Die künftigen Darwins werden vielleicht eine These aufstellen, dass die hochentwickelten Wesen (zu denen sie zählen werden) von den Menschen abstammen. Das wird ein Schock sein!

Der Mensch atmet leichter, wenn er das Maul hält.

Es gab einen, der ein halbes Leben an einem Gedanken saß - und die andere Hälfte für diesen Gedanken.

Jedermann will seinen Platz an der Sonne. (Wenn's geht, im Schatten.)

Die Vergangenheit wächst mit der Gegenwart.

Das Gewissen des Volkes steckt nicht unbedingt im Kopf des Staates.

Für viele Waren gibt es jetzt Plastikverpackungen; das Menschenfleisch aber wird immer noch in Zeitungspapier verpackt verkauft.

Laiks Namā rit citādi nekā Ārienē. Par to neviens nerunā, bet dažs labs paspēj nodzīvot divus mūžus un novecot tikmēr, kamēr citam aizrit nieka mēnesis un ne vairāk. Jo biežāk tu iekrīti starplaika caurumos, jo ilgāk dzīvo, bet to dara tikai tie, kas šeit jau ir sen, tādēļ atšķirība starp vecajiem un jauniņajiem ir milzīga, nav jābūt lielam gudrelim, lai to ieraudzītu. Paši alkatīgākie lec vairākas reizes mēnesī, un pēc tam velk līdzi sev vairākas savas pagātnes versijas. Tādu rīļu kā es Namā vairs nav, un tātad nav neviena, kurš būtu nodzīvojis tik loku, cik esmu nodzīvojis es. Lepoties nav vērts, bet es tomēr lepojos, jo izcila alkatība taču arī ir savdabīgs sasniegums.

Sumienie miał czyste. Nieużywane.

Do not expect too much of the end of the world. —Stanisław J. Lec, Aforyzmy. Fraszki, Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977, “Myśli nieuczesane

¿Cómo ejercitar la memoria para que aprenda a olvidar?

Es extraño que resulte tan difícil despertar ecos hasta en las cabezas huecas.

Quien olvida fácilmente, pasa mejor el examen de su vida.

La voz de la conciencia también pasa por un cambio de voz

If you are not a psychiatrist, stay away from idiots. They are too stupid to pay a layman for his company.

Yet, when examined through the lens of metaphor, we clearly see that Mr. Lec tightly packs multiple objects into the single word “avalanche,” including the image of snowflakes as people and the inexorable force of opinion to which a lone voice may be subject when the desire for consensus and pressure for conformity quash potential dissent while simultaneously absolving individual members within a group of culpability for collectively made decisions. Despite its manifest complexity, this story effortlessly unfolds not so much on the page itself, but in the mind of the reader.

Кожны каменьчык лавіны лічыць, што ён нявінны

The finger of God never leaves identical fingerprints.

On the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, one of the main forms of faery is the pouque, a being especially associated with megalithic structures, the so-called pouquelayes- also spelled pouclées, poucquelées and even porquelées.149 This term is said to be a combination of two Breton or Celtic words, their form of ‘puck’ plus lec’h (a dolmen or cromlech- compare llech, a stone, in Welsh). An alternative translation of the second element is the Breton for ‘place.’ The pouques are said to have built the structures and may also continue to reside in them.

C'è chi vorrebbe capire ciò in cui crede, e chi vorrebbe credere in ciò che capisce.

Zwei Parallelen begegnen sich in der Unendlichkeit und sie glauben daran.

El que busca el cielo en la tierra se ha dormido en clase de geografía

A funny word. E-lec-tion. Say it very slowly and it sounds disgusting. But if you say it just fast enough it almost sounds real, like it might even be legitimate.” “Torgon-off!

Viele, die ihrer Zeit vorausgeeilt waren, mußten auf sie in sehr unbequemen Unterkünften warten.

Wszyscy chcą naszego dobra.Nie dajmy go sobie zabrać!

Wszyscy chcą naszego dobra. Nie dajcie go sobie zabrać.

The juke­box is a com­mon sym­bol in coun­try music; it’s only nat­ural for such a self-reflexive rhetor­i­cal style to iden­tify the mate­r­ial cir­cum­stances of its exis­tence. Beneath the vul­gar­ity of its ves­sel, the juke­box is inscrutably com­plex: a source of tes­ti­mony, a pro­lif­er­a­tion of voices, a col­lec­tion of sensations—all avail­able for a price. The juke­box, like the songs within it, is a com­mod­ity suf­fused with a mess of mean­ing.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.

Every scarecrow has a secret ambition to terrorize.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec,

The finger of God never leaves identical fingerprints.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.

Every scarecrow has a secret ambition to terrorize.

I prefer the sign NO ENTRY to the one that says NO EXIT.

Or, rather, there is a duel between them: death toys with life, life toys with death. Which of the two succumbs? Stanislaw Lec reverses the terms here: it is not we who defend ourselves against death, it is death that defends itself against us: 'Death resists us, but it gives in in the end.' Nothing else so stunning as this has ever been said about death. Needless to say, this dual relationship has nothing to do with interactivity, which is a parody of it. There is nothing interactive in the antagonistic process of reversibility and becoming. The feminine and the masculine are not 'interactive': that is ridiculous. Life and the world are not interactive -life isn't a question-and-answer session or a video game. There is nothing interactive in words when they are articulated in language. Interactivity is a gigantic mythology, a mythology of integrated systems or of systems craving integration, a mythology in which otherness is lost in feedback, interlocution and interface - a kind of generalized echography.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.