Olaf Stapledon Quotes

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We have no government and no laws, if by law is meant a stereotyped convention supported by force, and not to be altered without the aid of cumbersome machinery.

Olaf Stapledon

Government, Law, Aids

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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A nation . . . is just a society for hating foreigners.

Olaf Stapledon

Hate, Foreigners, Nations

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I see, indeed I know, that in some sense God is love, and God is wisdom, and God is creative action, yes and God is beauty; but what God actually is, whether the maker of all things, or the fragrance of all things, or just a dream in our own hearts, I have not the art to know. Neither have you, I believe; nor any man, nor any spirit of our humble stature.

Olaf Stapledon

Dream, Art, Believe

"Sirius" by Olaf Stapledon, (Chapter IX), 1944.

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Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, seemingly, he comes to his end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things.

Olaf Stapledon

Stars, Men, Done

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In that instant when I had seen... the Star Maker, I had glimpsed, in the very eye of that splendor, strange vistas of being; as though in the depths of the hypercosmical past and the hypercosmical future also, yet coexistent in eternity, lay cosmos beyond cosmos.

Olaf Stapledon

Stars, Eye, Past

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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Men endured so much for war, but for peace they dared nothing.

Olaf Stapledon

War, Men

Olaf Stapledon (2015). “The Seed and the Flower”, p.11, Read Books Ltd

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Even when all the worlds have frozen or exploded, and all the suns gone dead and cold, there'll still be time. Oh, God, what for?

Olaf Stapledon

Time, Gone, Frozen

Olaf Stapledon (2013). “Odd John and Sirius”, p.244, Courier Corporation

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In a sick world even the hale are sick.

Olaf Stapledon

Sick World, Sick, World

Olaf Stapledon (2015). “Star Maker”, p.6, Sheba Blake Publishing

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Philosophy is an amazing tissue of really fine thinking and incredible, puerile mistakes. It's like one of those rubber 'bones' they give dogs to chew, damned good for the mind's teeth, but as food - no bloody good at all.

Olaf Stapledon

Dog, Philosophy, Mistake

Olaf Stapledon (2013). “Odd John and Sirius”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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Sooner or later for good or ill, a united mankind, equipped with science and power, will probably turn its attention to the other planets, not only for economic exploitation, but also as possible homes for man. . . . The goal for the solar system would seem to be that it should become an interplanetary community of very diverse worlds . . . . Through the pooling of this wealth of experience, through this 'commonwealth of worlds,' new levels of mental and spiritual development should become possible, levels at present quite inconceivable to man.

Olaf Stapledon

Spiritual, Home, Men

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In you, humanity is precarious; and so, in dread and in shame, you kill the animal in you. And its slaughter poisons you.

Olaf Stapledon

Animal, Humanity, Poison

Olaf Stapledon (1972). “Last and first men, and Last men in London”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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The one reasonable goal of social life was affirmed to be the creation of a world of awakened, of sensitive, intelligent, and mutually understanding personalities, banded together for the common purpose of exploring the universe and developing the human spirit's manifold potentialities.

Olaf Stapledon

Intelligent, Common Purpose, Goal

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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I perceived that I was on a little round grain of rock and metal, filmed with water and with air, whirling in sunlight and darkness. And on the skin of that little grain all the swarms of men, generation by generation, had lived in labour and blindness, with intermittent joy and intermittent lucidity of spirit. And all their history, with its folk-wanderings, its empires, its philosophies, its proud sciences, its social revolutions, its increasing hunger for community, was but a flicker in one day of the lives of the stars.

Olaf Stapledon

Stars, Philosophy, Men

Olaf Stapledon (1975). “To the End of Time”, Macmillan Reference USA

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No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet, could have guessed that this bland orb [Earth] teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts.

Olaf Stapledon

Angel, Self, World

"Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon, Dover Books, (p. 15), 1930.

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The cosmos exploded, actualizing its potentiality of space and time. The centers of power, like fragments of a bursting bomb, were hurled apart. But each one retained in itself, as a memory and a longing, the single point of the whole; and each mirrored in itself aspects of all the others throughout all the cosmical space and time.

Olaf Stapledon

Memories, Space, Cosmos

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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[T]he individual in whom the will for the light is strong and clear finds his heart inextricably bound up with the struggle of the forces of light in his native place and time. Much as he may long for the opportunity of fuller self- expression in a happier world, he knows that for him self-expression is impossible save in the world in which his mind is rooted. The individual in whom the will for the light is weak soon persuades himself that his opportunity lies elsewhere.

Olaf Stapledon

Strong, Lying, Struggle

Olaf Stapledon (1974). “Darkness and the light”, Hyperion Pr

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In fact man's career has been less like a mountain torrent hurtling from rock to rock, than a great sluggish river, broken very seldom by rapids.

Olaf Stapledon

Men, Rocks, Careers

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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Myriads of individuals, each one unique, live out their lives in rapt intercourse with one another, contribute their heart's pulses to the universal music, and presently vanish, giving place to others. All this age-long sequence of private living, which is the actual tissue of humanity's flesh, I cannot describe. I can only trace, as it were, the disembodied form of its growth.

Olaf Stapledon

Heart, Unique, Long

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, p.211, Courier Corporation

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The creator, if he should love his creature, would be loving only a part of himself; but the creature, praising the creator, praises an infinity beyond himself.

Olaf Stapledon

Would Be, Infinity, Praise

Olaf Stapledon (2015). “Star Maker”, p.200, Sheba Blake Publishing

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[S]ervants of darkness had no lasting joy in their service. In all of them the will for darkness was a perversion of the will for the light. In all but a few maniacs the satisfaction of the will for darkness was at all times countered by a revulsion which the unhappy spirit either dared not confess even to itself, or else rejected as cowardly and evil.

Olaf Stapledon

Light, Evil, Joy

Olaf Stapledon (1974). “Darkness and the light”, Hyperion Pr

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This kind of internal "telepathic" intercourse, which was to serve me in all my wanderings, was at first difficult, innefective, and painful. But in time I came to be able to live through the experiences of my host with vividness and accuracy, while yet preserving my own individuality, my own critical intelligence, my own desires and fears. Only when the other had come to realize my presence within him could he, by a special act of volition, keep particular thoughts secret from me.

Olaf Stapledon

Individuality, Secret, Special

Olaf Stapledon (2017). “Star Maker”, p.26, Sheba Blake Publishing

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He should avail himself of their resources in such ways as to advance the expression of the spirit in the life of mankind. He should use them so as to afford to every human being the greatest possible opportunity for developing and expressing his distinctively human capacity as an instrument of the spirit, as a centre of sensitive and intelligent awareness of the objective universe, as a centre of love of all lovely things, and of creative action for the spirit.

Olaf Stapledon

Inspirational, Life, Intelligent

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I loathe the urchin's cruelty to the cat, but I will not loathe the urchin. I loathe Hitler's mass-torturing, but not Hitler; and the money-man's heartlessness, but not the man. I love the swallow's flight, and I love the swallow; the urchin's gleam of tenderness, and the urchin.

Olaf Stapledon

Cat, Men, Gleam

"An Olaf Stapledon Reader" by by Olaf Stapledon, Syracuse University Press, New York, (pp. 266-272), 1997.

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The Tibetan missionaries in their mood of bright confidence disconcerted the imperial governments by laughing the new movement into frustration. For a sham faith cannot stand ridicule.

Olaf Stapledon

Frustration, Government, Laughing

Olaf Stapledon (2013). “Darkness and the Light”, p.50, Hachette UK

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So might we ourselves look down into some rock-pool where lowly creatures repeat with naive zest dramas learned by their ancestors æons ago.

Olaf Stapledon

Drama, Rocks, Zest

Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, p.364, Courier Corporation

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Born: May 10, 1886
Died: September 6, 1950
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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