You're not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?" "Only a man would think of that. It's our job," said Moist. "If you don't think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of creativity and innovation in problem-solving.
In this quote, Terry Pratchett subtly critiques the human tendency to think outside the box, suggesting that if we do not dare to dream up grand, imaginative ideas—like fifty-foot-high killer golems—others will take the lead in innovative thinking. Moist's statement reflects the responsibility of individuals to envision and create remarkable solutions that may initially seem outlandish or impractical.
In practice
During a brainstorming session, I could use this quote to inspire my team to think beyond conventional limits.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.
If an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same.
The trouble with energy farming is that the energy isn't always where you want to use it, and it isn't always when you want to use it.
If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery.
People thought I was crazy thinking about a phone you can just put in your pocket.
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
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