Faith as well as science endowed the visible world with properties that eliminated blind, incalculable chance as the author of all events. The war of… - Stanisław Lem

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos....

We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation)

A world compelled to good alone is as much a shrine to compulsion as a world compelled to evil only.

The Twenty-first Voyage

You are only a puppet. But you don't realize that you are.