Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
Douglas AdamsRead
I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims, ideas... cultures... and systems of thought, we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word 'freedom' means than I see much evidence of in America.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that exposure to diverse cultures in Europe leads to a deeper understanding of freedom compared to America.
Douglas Adams reflects on how living in Europe, characterized by its multitude of cultures, ideas, and competing systems, has fostered a more nuanced comprehension of freedom. He implies that this complexity contrasts with the simpler or less developed notion of freedom that he perceives in the United States.
Themes
FreedomCultureEuropeSovereigntyUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about cultural diversity, one might reference this quote to illustrate how different backgrounds influence perceptions of freedom.
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Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
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Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
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We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
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