QuoteProject
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
Douglas Adams
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote humorously suggests that if something exhibits certain characteristics, it should not be dismissed as something else.

Douglas Adams uses this quote to convey that when something clearly resembles a certain type, such as a duck, we should reasonably consider it to be that thing. This statement reflects a deeper philosophical idea about perception and reality, highlighting the importance of reasoning based on observable evidence rather than assumptions or prejudice.

Themes

DuckPerceptionRealityEvidencePhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about clear evidence, one might quote this to emphasize logical reasoning.

More from Douglas Adams

Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
Douglas AdamsRead
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead

Similar quotes

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
William ShakespeareRead
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis BaconRead
I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
George Bernard ShawRead
Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that holds no tenderness, no quietude, I long suddenly for peace, for understanding.
Daphne Du MaurierRead
The older I get the more I'm convinced that it's the purpose of politicians and journalists to say the world is very simple, whereas it's the purpose of historians to say, 'No! It's very complicated.' _x000D_ _x000D_ The job of the historian is to help give people a sense of existence in time, without which we are really not fully human.
David CannadineRead
Behind the veil of each night, there is a smilling dawn.
Khalil GibranRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.