“Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.”

— Douglas Adams , book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Last update Feb. 12, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, …" by Douglas Adams?

Douglas Adams photo

Douglas Adams 317

English writer and humorist 1952–2001

Related quotes

“Premenstrual Syndrome: Just before their periods women behave the way men do all the time.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

credited to Lowell Stone, M.D., born 2144; chapter 15, p. 185
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

“The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

The White House Years (1979)
1970s
Context: The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.

“Men are beasts and even beasts don't behave as they do.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist

“But it would be enough that, when riding beasts, they behave like men and not like beasts.”

Bem Cavalgar (1391–1438) King of Portugal

Part II

“Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" — It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said "this is a man," "this is a house," etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then?”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 17e

“Dear Gen'l, -- The fort & garrison with Col. Johnston are ours. Our officers & men behaved like men who are determined to be free.”

Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) Continental Army general

note to Washington after receiving the surrender of Stony Point
Attributed

“All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.”

Francis Galton (1822–1911) British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics

Source: Memories of My Life (1908), Chapter V Cambridge

“When all is said and done, science is about things and theology is about words. Things behave in the same way everywhere, but words do not. … Theology works in one culture alone. If you have not grown up in Polkinghorne's culture, where words such as "incarnation" and "trinity" have a profound meaning, you cannot share his vision.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

“Bill, why is it that some apparently-grown men never learn to do simple arithmetic?”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 14, “Land of My Own” (p. 142)

“Gentlemen do not behave in such a way.”

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) British politician

On the Hoare-Laval Pact (1935). Quoted in Harold Macmillan Winds of Change (Macmillan, 1966), pp. 411-12.
1930s

Related topics