Douglas Adams: Quotes about thinking

Douglas Adams was English writer and humorist. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Douglas Adams: 634   quotes 191   likes

“Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.”

Douglas Adams

Parrots, the Universe and Everything (2001)

World , Question , Thinking , Tree

“Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Thinking

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Way , Thinking

“There are some people you like immediately, some whom you think you might learn to like in the fullness of time, and some that you simply want to push away from you with a sharp stick.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

People , Thinking , Learning , Time

“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
Thinking , Universe

“See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”

Douglas Adams
Thinking , Forgetting

“Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.”

Douglas Adams

Source: The Hitchhiker's Trilogy

Fools , Thinking

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“What not?”
“Because … because … I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Thinking

“I think we have different value systems." —Arthur
"Well mine's better." —Ford”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Thinking

“If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Thinking

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

Problem , Thinking

“I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”

Douglas Adams

Speech http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/index.html at Digital Biota 2 http://www.cyberbiology.org/, Cambridge, UK, (1998) <!-- also quoted in Richard Dawkins' eulogy http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html for Douglas Adams -->
Context: Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, may have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there's plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that's a very dangerous thing to say.

Thinking

“It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
Context: For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.

Thinking , Sense

“I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Feeling , Thinking

“Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Thinking , Sense , Chance

“Yes, it is true that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that's something you might have to consider.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Children , Stupidity , Intelligence , Thinking

“What was the self-sacrifice?"
I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes."
Why was that self-sacrifice?"
Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly.
I think we have different value systems."
Well mine's better.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

Love , Shoe , Thinking

“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Question , Problem , Thinking