Douglas Adams, best known as the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, had a talent for expressing the human condition in a profound and entertaining way. Here are a few examples:

• Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
• There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
• I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
• He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher… or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
• It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
• Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.