Solaris

by Stanisław Lem

In any case it’s something extremely rare, unlike Earth. Us, we’re common, we’re the grass of the universe, and we take pride in our commonness, that it’s so widespread, and we thought it could encompass everything. It was a kind of schema we took with us when we set off intrepidly and joyfully on our long journey: other worlds! But what exactly are they, those other worlds? We’d conquer them or we’d be conquered, there was nothing else in those wretched brains of ours. It wasn’t worth it. It really wasn’t.”