Douglas Adams Quotes

It really sucks to be the number two intelligent species on this planet; you can just ask gorillas.

Perhaps measuring animal intelligence by comparing it to human intelligence isn't the best litmus test.

Amongst the minds of animals that of man leads, not as a demigod from another planet, but as a king from the same race.

When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Just because we're stupid doesn't mean everybody else was.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was "just human".

The pretense that humans are superior to nonhumans is entirely unsupportable. I have seen no compelling evidence that humans are particularly more "intelligent" than any other creature. I have had long and fruitful relationshis with many nonhuman animals, both domesticated and wild, and have reveled in the bouquet of radically different intelligences - different forms, not different "quantities" that they have introduced to me, each in his or her own time, in his or her own way.

It is my experience that in some areas [my poodle] Charley is more intelligent that I am, but in others he is abysmally ignorant. He can't read, can't drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. But in his own field of endeavor, which he is now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing on an area, he has no peer. Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine?

No man is smart, except by comparison to those who know less

There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. All the time, we find animals doing things that, in our arrogance, we thought were just human.

Dalmatians are not only superior to other dogs, they are like all dogs, infinitely less stupid than men.

Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us.... Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?

Cats virtually always underestimate human intelligence just as we, perhaps, underestimate theirs.

The only useful answer to the question 'Who is smarter, a man or a woman?' is, which man and which woman?

A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.

The Arab peoples possess an ancient and highly developed civilization that is in many ways more sophisticated than our own. For instance, they invented algebra. And this is why we have to go to war with Saddam Hussein this minute and bomb the shish kebab out of him before he invents trig and chemistry and the whole of America flunks high school.

Success is just a war of attrition. Sure, there's an element of talent you should probably possess, but if you stick around long enough, eventually something is going to happen.

Is it to be expected that the Southern States will deliver themselves bound hand and foot to the Eastern States? A few rich merchants in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York could thereby monopolise the staples of the Southern States and reduce their value.

Forests are breaking out all over America. New England has more forests since the Civil War. In 1880, New York State was only 25 percent forested. Today it is more than 66 percent. In 1850, Vermont was only 35 percent forested. Now it's 76 percent forested and rising. In the south, more land is covered by forest than at any time in the last century. In 1936 a study found that 80 percent of piedmont Georgia was without trees. Today nearly 70 percent of the state is forested. In the last decade alone, America has added more than 10 million acres of forestland.

In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

I was in a Broadway musical called Big Time Buck Wright.The play didn't make it but I was a success. It lasted six days but I sung four songs and there were critics, seriously, in New York who said that my part was perfect. So I can beat Joe Frazier singing.

Such an executive officer the sun never shone on. I have but to show him my design, and I know that it can be done, it will be done...Straight as the needle to the pole he advanced to the execution of my purpose.

What you've lost sight of is what you are, and what you are is what you hate. You're the 10-time WWE Champion! You're the man! You, like the Red Sox, like Boston, are no longer the underdog! You're a dynasty. You are what you hate. You have become the New York Yankees!