Douglas Adams
"“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. But, says Man, The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED. Oh dear, says God, I hadn't thought of that, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”"
119 Quotes
"“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. But, says Man, The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED. Oh dear, says God, I hadn't thought of that, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”"
Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Douglas Adams
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
"The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
"Just supposing," he said, "just supposing" --he didn't know what was coming next, so he thought he'd just sit back and listen--"that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn't know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I've only just met and not crash into lorries a the same time, what would you say..." He paused, helplessly, and looked at her."I should do."
Douglas Adams
"What do you consider the most interesting man-made structure in the galaxy?The dam they are building at the Three Gorges on the Yangtse. Though perhaps 'baffling' would be a better word. Dams almost never do what they were intended to do, but create devastation beyond belief. And yet we keep on building them, and I can't help but wonder why. I'm convinced that if we go back far enough in the history of the human species, we will find some beaver genes creeping in there somewhere. It's the only explanation that makes sense."
Douglas Adams
"We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford."..."And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty."Such as"Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords."Would you die for them"Fjords" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No."Well then."Wouldn't see the point, to be honest."
Douglas Adams
"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."
Douglas Adams
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical."
Douglas Adams
"The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat."
Douglas Adams
"Slartibartfast's study was a total mess, like the results of an explosion in a public library."
Douglas Adams
"If you describe yourself as "Atheist," some people will say, "Don't you mean 'Agnostic'" I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one. It's easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it's an opinion I hold seriously. It's funny how many people are genuinely surprised to hear a view expressed so strongly. In England we seem to have drifted from vague wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much."
Douglas Adams
"But she was finding it increasingly easy to believe that God, if there was a God, and if it was remotely possible that any godlike being who could order the disposition of particles at the creation of the Universe would also be interested in directing traffic on the M4, did not want her to fly to Norway either."
Douglas Adams
"The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question How can we eat?, the second by the question Why do we eat?, and the third but the question Where shall we have lunch?"
Douglas Adams
"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place."
Douglas Adams
"The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied."
Douglas Adams
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