“In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way--as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career--the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was."”

— Douglas Adams , The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 2

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 "In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete i…" by Douglas Adams?

Douglas Adams 317

English writer and humorist 1952–2001

Related quotes

“His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way.”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

On British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, diary entry of March 2, 1941
First Term as Prime Minister (1939-1941)
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20080228185527/http://www.oph.gov.au/menzies/churchillandthewarcabinet.htm

“In the psychological fields most fundamental to the whole behavior of living things the transition seems inevitable to a Galileian view of dynamics, which derives all its vectors not from single isolated objects, but from the mutual relations of the factors in the concrete whole situation, that is, essentially, from the momentary condition of the individual and the structure of the psychological situation. The dynamics of the processes is always to be derived from the relation of the concrete individual to the concrete situation, and, so far as internal forces are concerned, from the mutual relations of the various functional systems that make up the individual.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. 41; partly cited in: Kay Deaux, Mark Snyder (2012) The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology. p. 74

“Changes in the structure of society are not brought about solely by massive engines of doctrine. The first flash of insight which persuades human beings to change their basic assumptions is usually contained in a few phrases.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Section 5: A Note on Ruskin's Writings on Society and Economics
Ruskin Today (1964)

“I think that having 24 people around the Cabinet table whose future depends upon maintaining the good will of one man is fundamentally undemocratic and it would be far better if Cabinet ministers were accountable to the Parliamentary Labour Party.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Interview for London Weekend Television's Weekend World, quoted in The Times (11 February 1980), p. 2
1980s

“The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Source: Tradition and the Individual Talent: An Essay

“Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them--at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Source: Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories

“According to Husserl, that 'act of meaning', or the use of a given phrase as an expression of a certain language, consists in the fact that a sensory content appears in consciousness, by means of which one might think visually about that phrase, should that content be joined by an appropriate intention directed to that phrase. But when a given phrase is used as an expression belonging to a certain language, then that sensory content is joined by another intention, not necessarily a representative one, which is however in principle directed to something other than that phrase itself. Together with the sensory content in question, that intention makes up a uniform experience, but neither the experiencing of that sensory content, nor that intention is a complete, independent experience. Both the one and the other are non-independent parts of the experience as a whole. The meaning of a given expression (as a type) would be, according to Husserl, the type under which that intention joined to the sensory content must fall if the given phrase is to be used as an expression belonging precisely to that language”

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963) Philosopher, logician

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, On the Meaning of Expressions, Lwow 1931. (original title: O znaczeniii wyrazen.) p. 19-20; as cited in: Schaff (1962;299)

“Jack: A potential Cabinet Minister if ever I saw one. Dishonest in a way which seems embarrassingly frank. Upright when creeping. And dignified when at his most stupid.”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Vote, vote, vote for Nigel Barton (1965)

“There is an appreciated substance to the phrase "ALGOL-like" which is often used in arguments about programming, languages and computation. ALGOL appears to be a durable model, and even flourishes under surgery — be it explorative, plastic, or amputative.”

Alan Perlis (1922–1990) American computer scientist

The Synthesis of Algorithmic Systems, 1966

“Man, according to the Theosophical teaching, is a sevenfold being, or, in the usual phrase a septenary constitution. Putting it yet in another way, man's nature has seven aspects, may be studied from seven different points of view, is composed of Seven Principles.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Seven Principles of Man http://books.google.co.in/books?id=tgEM1XiI74kC&printsec=frontcover, p. 6

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Douglas Adams 317

Related quotes

Related topics