A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.
Interpretation
Writers should offer new perspectives rather than simply reflect society.
Stanislaw Lem emphasizes the role of a writer as a visionary or innovator rather than merely a chronicler of existing societal norms and values. By suggesting that writers avoid running around with a mirror, Lem advocates for the creation of original thoughts and ideas that challenge conventional wisdom and provoke new ways of thinking, ultimately contributing to societal advancement.
In practice
In a literary discussion at a writer's workshop to emphasize the importance of originality.
The only writers who have any peace are the ones who don't write. And there are some like that. They wallow in a sea of possibilities. To express a thought, you first have to limit it, and that means kill it. Every word I speak robs me of a thousand others, and every line I write means giving up another.
We didn't know each other well. I never had the time. Now I see that it doesn't make any difference. The ones who hurry and the ones who take their time all end up in the same place. Just don't have any regrets. No regrets.
Cripple God, who always desires more than he's able to have, and doesn't always realize this to begin with. Who has built clocks, but not the time that they measure. Has built systems or mechanisms that serve particular purposes, but they too have outgrown these purposes and betrayed them. And has created an infinity that, from being the measure of the power he was supposed to have, turned into the measure of his boundless failure.
We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.
No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.
Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.
Authors are far closer to the truths enfolded in mystery than ordinary people, because of that very audacity of imagination which irritates their plodding critics. As only those who dare to make mistakes succeed greatly, only those who shake free the wings of their imagination brush, once in a way, the secrets of the great pale world. If such writers go wrong, it is not for the mere brains to tell them so
Think it a vile habit to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.
'Tristan' is a very unique case, not just in Wagner's output, but in music in general. It remains contemporary no matter what else surrounds it. There is something self-renewing about it.
But don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset and I'm limp, by God.
That song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.
How quiet the writing, how noisy the printing.
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