“Digging deep in a Martian desert
men discovered an enormous brain.
It suddenly started to think at them —
So they covered it up again…”

—  Brian W. Aldiss

"The Deceptive Truth", The Dark Sun Rises (2002)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Digging deep in a Martian desert men discovered an enormous brain. It suddenly started to think at them — So they co…" by Brian W. Aldiss?
Brian W. Aldiss photo
Brian W. Aldiss 116
British science fiction author 1925–2017

Related quotes

“But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.”

John Webster The White Devil

Act V, scene iv.
The White Devil (1612)

Clemantine Wamariya photo

“It’s the journey of digging deep into yourself and the things you discover if you only dare to dig deep into your memories, your relationship, and your thoughts. It’s been such an incredible journey, but thank goodness I was not alone in it. So many people feeding me, listening to me, editing, hosting me—so it’s not been alone.”

Clemantine Wamariya (1988) Rwandan-American activist and author

On her book The Girl Who Smiled Beads in “A Conversation with Clemantine Wamariya https://www.readitforward.com/author-interview/clemantine-wamariya/” in Read it Forward (2017)

V. P. Singh photo

“What struck me most was his naiveté. He was like someone in a coal mine who suddenly finds a diamond and starts exulting over it. He begins to seriously believe that it is possible to repeat the feat, so he will dig into the black soot again.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

The Lonely Punter: V.P.Singh

George S. Patton photo

“My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!

Lewis Carroll photo

“I wonder if the snowthe trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

“Paleoseismology... is science by backhoe. Researchers dig deep, straight-walled ditches and search up and down for signs of shaking.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

Aleksis Kivi photo

“Now dig my grave
Beneath the bay willows' boughs
And with blackness cover it over again,
There for evermore
Go from my domain:
I wish to slumber in peace.”

Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872) Finnish writer

Weariness.

Henry David Thoreau photo

“In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into chancery, make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)

David Levithan photo

“I was starting to think I was making up memories, just to have answers.
Our brain does that sometimes.
Or at least mine does.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

“If you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into primates, suddenly you might transform primates into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human – speech or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to a human. These possibilities, at the moment, are largely being explored in fiction but we need to start thinking about them now.”

Thomas Baldwin (philosopher) (1947) British philosopher

As quoted in Medical research warning over human cells in animals https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/22/medical-research-humans-animals-regulation by Alok Jha, 22 July 2011, The Guardian.

Related topics