“If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t.”

—  Douglas Adams , book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
Context: If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

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 "If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have…" by Douglas Adams?
Douglas Adams photo
Douglas Adams 317
English writer and humorist 1952–2001

Related quotes

Suze Orman photo

“Many of the good things would never have happened if the bad events hadn't happened first.”

Suze Orman (1951) American author, television personality, motivational speaker, businesswoman, investor

Source: The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying

Carl Sandburg photo

“We can never possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

“Around 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, and almost four billion years since life first evolved, something strange began to happen: Tiny parts of the universe became conscious, and came to know something about themselves and the universe of which they are a part… Eventually, some of these tiny parts of the universe - the parts we call ‘scientists’ and ‘scientifically-informed laypeople’ - came to understand the Big Bang and the evolutionary process through which they had come to exist. After an eternity of unconsciousness, the universe now had some glimmering awareness that it existed and some understanding of where it had come from.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 152

“Of course, of course. Even though if it wasn’t for what happened previously, all the success we had previously, it’s not like you can come straight from an underground record to Oscar status and be recognised by the people at the Academy. Me and Paul had a conversation about this actually when I got out of jail. I congratulated him because I came out like the day before it came on and I was like: ‘I’m proud of you’. And he told me: ‘Well don’t be proud of me because we couldn’t have did it without all the stuff you did’.”

Lord Infamous (1975–2013) American rapper

Interview whit Lord Infamous - RIP - March 2009 https://medium.com/@daveyboysmith/interview-with-lord-infamous-rip-march-30th-2009-94dbfc2f0d9b

Michelle Obama photo

“Serving as your First Lady is an honor and a privilege…but back when we first came together four years ago, I still had some concerns about this journey we'd begun. While I believed deeply in my husband's vision for this country…and I was certain he would make an extraordinary President…like any mother, I was worried about what it would mean for our girls if he got that chance.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“… in such a matter he would never have been guided by his first thoughts (which would probably have been right) nor even by his twenty-first (which would have at least been explicable). Beyond doubt he would have prolonged deliberation till his hundred-and-first; and they would be infallibly and invincibly wrong. This is what always happens to the deliberations of a simple man who thinks he is a subtle one.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Surprised by Joy

Surprised by Joy (1955)

James A. Garfield photo

“I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

As quoted in The Power of Choice (2007) by Joyce Guccione, p. 49

Steph Davis photo

“It's funny how many times in life I've found myself rolling full steam ahead toward something I was sure I'd never do. Whatever might happen in life, whether I liked it or didn't like it, I could know one thing for sure: it would change. There was absolute certainty in uncertainty, in some ways an enormous comfort.”

Steph Davis (1973) American rock climber

Learning to Fly: A Memoir of Hanging On and Letting Go (New York: Touchstone, 2015), pp. 83 https://books.google.it/books?id=IIDRCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA83-84.

José Saramago photo

“He got out of the van to see how many other suppliers were ahead of him and thus calculate, more or less accurately, how long he would have to wait. He was number thirteen, he counted again, no, there was no doubt about it. Although he was not a suspirations person, he knew about that number’s bad reputation, in any conversation about chance, fate or destiny, someone always chips in with some real-life experience of the negative, even fatal influence of the number thirteen. He tried to remember if he had ever been in this place in the queue before, but the long and the short of it was that either it had never happened or else he had simply forgotten. he got annoyed with himself, it was nonsense, utterly absurd to worry about something that has no real existence, yes, that was right, he had never thought of that before, numbers don’t really exist, things couldn’t care less what number we give them, its all the same to them if we say they’re number thirteen or number forty-four, we can conclude, at the very least, that they do not even notice the position they happen to end up in. people aren’t things, people always want to be in first place”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 9 (Vintage 2003)

“When a broad and significant change occurs in the organization, the first question many people ask is “What's in it for me?” or “What's going to happen to me? This is an indication of the anxiety that occurs when people are faced with the uncertainty associated with organizational change.”

David A. Nadler (1948–2015) American organizational theorist

David A Nadler (2010), "Techniques for the management of change," Robert Golembiewski (ed.) Handbook of Organizational Consultation, p. 1067; Quoted in: Diane Dormant, ‎Joe Lee (2011). The Chocolate Model of Change.

Related topics