Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the absurdity of our everyday perceptions in the face of the vastness of the universe.
Douglas Adams reflects on the extraordinary nature of human existence within the cosmos. By emphasizing that we live on a seemingly ordinary planet while it orbits a massive star surrounded by incomprehensible distances, he suggests that our perception of reality may often overlook the sheer complexity and wonder of the universe. This quote urges us to question our perspectives and recognize the remarkable circumstances of our existence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the importance of scientific exploration, you might use this quote to illustrate how unusual our perspective is.
More from Douglas Adams
All quotes →"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
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We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.
Sometimes we exclude things in ourselves in order to be like everybody else around us-our ethnicity, our social backgrounds, our ideas. What kind of world is it that will not allow me to be myself, and is it really good for me to be there? What part of me will die a slow death if I stay?
We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.
The Life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.