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
The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humans have the unique ability to define their moral rules, allowing for personal and societal evolution.
This quote by Douglas Adams highlights the privilege and responsibility humans hold as the only species that can discern right from wrong. It suggests that this capability empowers individuals and societies to create their own ethical frameworks and adapt them over time, reflecting a dynamic understanding of morality that is influenced by cultural and situational factors.
Themes
MoralityEthicsRulesFreedomDecision-Making
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about ethical philosophy in a classroom setting.
More from Douglas Adams
All quotes β"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
Douglas AdamsRead
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.
Douglas AdamsRead
Similar quotes
When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
Otto Von BismarckRead
It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities.
Samuel JohnsonRead
Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
Thomas HobbesRead
The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth.
Niels BohrRead
It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
The senses are a kind of reason. Taste, touch and smell, hearing and seeing, are not merely a means to sensation, enjoyable or otherwise, but they are also a means to knowledge - and are, indeed, your only actual means to knowledge.
Joseph CampbellRead