Olaf Stapledon Quotes

United Kingdom, Philosopher
May 10, 1886 – September, 6, 1950.

William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction. In 2014, he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Our outworn economic system dooms millions to frustration.

Olaf Stapledon
- Frustration
Without Satan, with God only, how poor a universe, how trite a music!

Olaf Stapledon
- Music
- God
- Universe

To say that the cosmos was expanding is equally to say that its members were contracting. The ultimate centers of power, each at first coincident... themselves generated the cosmical space by their disengagement from each other.

Olaf Stapledon
- Power
- Space
It is enough to have been created, to have embodied for a moment the infinite and tumultuously creative spirit. It is infinitely more than enough to have been used, to have been the rough sketch for some perfected creation. Looking into the future, I saw without sorrow, rather with quiet interest, my own decline and fall.

Olaf Stapledon
- Future
- Fall
In man, social intercourse has centred mainly on the process of absorbing fluid into the organism, but in the domestic dog and to a lesser extent among all wild canine species, the act charged with most social significance is the excretion of fluid.

Olaf Stapledon
- Dog
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
- Rock
- Pool