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This Planet Has — Or Rather Had — A Problem, Which Was This: Most Of The People Living On It Were Unhappy For Pretty Much All Of The Time.
-Douglas Adams
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This Planet Has —

Douglas Adams
...
This Planet Has — Or Rather Had — A Problem, Which Was This: Most Of The People Living On It Were Unhappy For Pretty Much All Of The Time.

Understanding the Quote: "this planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was..."

This quote by Douglas Adams reflects deeply on the theme of you make me happy. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under You Make Me Happy, People, Unhappy, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Douglas Adams interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is celebrated for insightful thoughts on you make me happy and people. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
You Make Me Happy
People
Unhappy
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I Wrote An Ad For Apple Computer: "macintosh - We Might Not Get Everything Right, But At Least We Knew The Century Was Going To End".
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Impossible Things
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Your God Person Puts An Apple Tree In The Middle Of A Garden And Says, Do What You Like, Guys, Oh, But Don't Eat The Apple. Surprise Surprise, They Eat It And He Leaps Out From Behind A Bush Shouting "gotcha". It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference If They Hadn't Eaten It.' 'why Not?' 'because If You're Dealing With Somebody Who Has The Sort Of Mentality Which Likes Leaving Hats On The Pavement With Bricks Under Them You Know Perfectly Well They Won't Give Up. They'll Get You In The End.
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Garden
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Giving
Tiny
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Mean
Thinking
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Busy
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Men
Voice
Doubt
Shee, You Guys Are So Unhip It's A Wonder Your Bums Don't Fall Off.
Fall
Guy
Hitchhiking
Anyone Who Is Capable Of Getting Themselves Made President Should On No Account Be Allowed To Do The Job.
Funny
Jobs
Responsibility
Simple. I Got Very Bored And Depressed, So I Went And Plugged Myself In To Its External Computer Feed. I Talked To The Computer At Great Length And Explained My View Of The Universe To It," Said Marvin. "and What Happened?" Pressed Ford. "it Committed Suicide," Said Marvin And Stalked Off Back To The Heart Of Gold.
Suicide
Heart
Simple
Deep In The Fundamental Heart Of Mind And Universe There Is A Reason.
Heart
Mind
Fundamentals
The Point Is, You See," Said Ford, "that There Is No Point In Driving Yourself Mad Trying To Stop Yourself Going Mad. You Might Just As Well Give In And Save Your Sanity For Later.
Depression
Giving
Mad
R Is A Velocity Of Measure, Defined As A Reasonable Speed Of Travel That Is Consistent With Health, Mental Well-being, And Not Being More Than, Say, Five Minutes Late. It Is Therefore Clearly As Almost Infinite Variable Figure According To Circumstances, Since The First Two Factors Vary Not Only With Speed As An Absolute, But Also With Awareness Of The Third Factor. Unless Handled With Tranquility, This Equation Can Result In Considerable Stress, Ulcers, And Even Death.
Stress
Two
Variables
I Think All Cats Are Wild. They Only Act Tame If There´s A Saucer Of Milk In It For Them.
Cat
Thinking
Milk
See First, Think Later, Then Test. But Always See First. Otherwise You Will Only See What You Were Expecting. Most Scientists Forget That.
Thinking
Tests
Firsts
He Picked Up The Letter Q And Hurled It Into A Distant Privet Bush Where It Hit A Young Rabbit. The Rabbit Hurtled Off In Terror And Didn’t Stop Till It Was Set Upon And Eaten By A Fox Which Choked On One Of Its Bones And Died On The Bank Of A Stream Which Subsequently Washed It Away. During The Following Weeks Ford Perfect Swallowed His Pride And Struck Up A Relationship With A Girl Who Had Been A Personnel Officer On Golgafrincham, And He Was Terribly Upset When She Suddenly Passed Away As A Result Of Drinking Water From A Pool That Had Been Polluted By The Body Of A Dead Fox.
Girl
Drinking
Pride
"what's So Unpleasant About Being Drunk?" "ask A Glass Of Water."
Glasses
Drunk
Water
To Trin Tragula's Horror, The Shock Completely Annihilated Her Brain; But To His Satisfaction He Realized That He Had Proved Conclusively That If Life Is Going To Exist In A Universe Of This Size, Then The One Thing It Cannot Afford To Have Is A Sense Of Proportion.
Brain
Satisfaction
Size
Very Deep. You Should Send That In To The Reader's Digest. They've Got A Page For People Like You.
People
Deep Thought
Pages
Conceited Little Mega-puppy.
Conceited
Littles
Puppy
All Through My Life I've Had This Strange Unaccountable Feeling That Something Was Going On In The World, Something Big, Even Sinister, And No One Would Tell Me What It Was." "no," Said The Old Man, "that's Just Perfectly Normal Paranoia. Everyone In The Universe Has That.
Men
Perfectly Normal
Feelings
This Planet Has - Or Rather Had - A Problem, Which Was This: Most Of The People Living On It Were Unhappy For Pretty Much Of The Time. Many Solutions Were Suggested For This Problem, But Most Of These Were Largely Concerned With The Movement Of Small Green Pieces Of Paper, Which Was Odd Because On The Whole It Wasn't The Small Green Pieces Of Paper That Were Unhappy.
Inspirational
Happiness
Money
He Had A Tremendous Propensity For Getting Lost When Driving. This Was Largely Because Of His Method Of “zen” Navigation, Which Was Simply To Find Any Car That Looked As If It Knew Where It Was Going And Follow It. The Results Were More Often Surprising Than Successful, But He Felt It Was Worth It For The Sake Of The Few Occasions When It Was Both.
Successful
Car
Getting Lost
Dirk Turned On The Car Wipers, Which Grumbled Because They Didn't Have Quite Enough Rain To Wipe Away, So He Turned Them Off Again. Rain Quickly Speckled The Windscreen. He Turned On The Wipers Again, But They Still Refused To Feel That The Exercise Was Worthwhile, And Scraped And Squeaked In Protest.
Rain
Exercise
Car
In Fact There Was Only One Species On The Planet More Intelligent Than Dolphins, And They Spent A Lot Of Their Time In Behavioural Research Laboratories Running Around Inside Wheels And Conduction Frighteningly Elegant And Subtle Experiments On Man. The Fact That Once Again Man Completely Misinterpreted This Relationship Was Entirely According To These Creatures’ Plans.
Running
Intelligent
Men
Earthmen Are Not Proud Of Their Ancestors And Never Invite Them Round To Dinner.
Funny
Family
Food
When People You Greatly Admire Appear To Be Thinking Deep Thoughts, They Probably Are Thinking About Lunch.
Thinking
Lunch
People
I Am Rarely Happier Than When Spending An Entire Day Programming My Computer.
Computer
Programming
Spending
How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down?
Men
Ultimate Questions
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
To Summarize The Summary Of The Summary: People Are A Problem.
People
Political
Problem
Shoeburyness (abs.n.) The Vague Uncomfortable Feeling You Get When Sitting On A Seat Which Is Still Warm From Somebody Else's Bottom.
Uncomfortable Feeling
Feelings
Sitting
High On A Rocky Promontory Sat An Electric Monk On A Bored Horse.
Horse
Bored
Monk
But While Nature Has Considerable Resilience, There Is A Limit To How Far That Resilience Can Be Stretched. No One Knows How Close To The Limit We Are Getting. The Darker It Gets, The Faster We're Driving
Nature
Resilience
Limits
He Felt Like An Old Sponge Steeped In Paraffin And Left In The Sun To Dry.
Dry
Sun
Sponges
The Only Thing Nicer Than A Phone That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All) Was Six Phones That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All).
Phones
Six
Rings
He Learned To Communicate With Birds And Discovered Their Conversation Was Fantastically Boring. It Was All To Do With Windspeed, Wingspans, Power-to-weight Ratios And A Fair Bit About Berries.
Bird
Berries
Weight
The Simple Truth Is That Interstellar Distances Will Not Fit Into The Human Imagination.
Distance
Simple
Imagination
Curiously Enough, The Only Thing That Went Through The Mind Of The Bowl Of Petunias As It Fell Was Oh No, Not Again. Many People Have Speculated That If We Knew Exactly Why The Bowl Of Petunias Had Thought That We Would Know A Lot More About The Nature Of The Universe Than We Do Now.
People
Mind
Hitchhiking
Marvin Started His Ironical Humming Again. Zaphod Hit Him And He Shut Up.
Shut Up
Humming
Marvin
Beauty Doesn't Have To Be About Anything. What's A Vase About? What's A Sunset Or A Flower About? What, For That Matter, Is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto About?
Flower
Sunset
Piano
Goosnargh," Said Ford Prefect, Which Was A Special Betelgeusian Word He Used When He Knew He Should Say Something But Didn't Know What It Should Be.
Special
Used
Should
I Don't Want To Die Now!" He Yelled. "i've Still Got A Headache! I Don't Want To Go To Heaven With A Headache, I'd Be All Cross And Wouldn't Enjoy It!
Heaven
Want
Headache
A Common Mistake That People Make When Trying To Design Something Completely Foolproof Is To Underestimate The Ingenuity Of Complete Fools.
Inspirational
Funny
Fake People
The Saab Seethed Off Into The Night. Arthur Watched It Go, As Stunned As A Man Might Be Who, Having Believed Himself To Be Totally Blind For Five Years, Suddenly Discovers That He Had Merely Been Wearing Too Large A Hat.
Night
Men
Years
Woking (vb.) To Enter The Kitchen With The Precise Determination To Perform Something Only To Forget What It Is Just Before You Do It.
Determination
Kitchen
Forget
Every Country Is Like A Particular Type Of Person. America Is Like A Belligerent, Adolescent Boy, Canada Is Like An Intelligent, 35 Year Old Woman. Australia Is Like Jack Nicholson.
Country
Intelligent
Boys
Who Is This God Person Anyway?
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Hitchhikers Guide
Persons
Douglas Adams Did Not Enjoy Writing, And He Enjoyed It Less As Time Went On. He Was A Bestselling, Acclaimed, And Much-loved Novelist Who Had Not Set Out To Be A Novelist, And Who Took Little Joy In The Process Of Crafting Novels. He Loved Talking To Audiences. He Liked Writing Screenplays. He Liked Being At The Cutting Edge Of Technology And Inventing
Writing
Cutting
Technology
Now The World Has Gone To Bed, Darkness Won't Engulf My Head, I Can See By Infrared, How I Hate The Night. Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, Try To Count Electric Sheep, Sweet Dream Wishes You Can Keep, How I Hate The Night. -marvin
Dream
Sweet
Hate
Anything That Happens, Happens.
Happens
...and The Universe, ... Will Explode Later For Your Pleasure.
Pleasure
Universe
We Talked About How Easy It Was To Make The Mistake Of Anthropomorphizing Animals, And Projecting Our Own Feelings And Perceptions On To Them, Where They Were Inappropriate And Didn't Fit. We Simply Had No Idea What It Was Like Being An Extremely Large Lizard, And Neither For That Matter Did The Lizard, Because It Was Not Self-conscious About Being An Extremely Large Lizard, It Just Got On With The Business Of Being One. To React With Revulsion To Its Behavior Was To Make The Mistake Of Applying Criteria That Are Only Appropriate To The Business Of Being Human.
Mistake
Animal
Self
I Tend Not To Read Or Watch Science Fiction, Particularly Not Comedy Science Fiction. The Point Is That If It's Less Good Than What I Do, There's No Point In Reading It, If It's Better Than What I Do It Makes Me Depressed
Reading
Watches
Fiction
And For All The Richest And Most Successful Merchants Life Inevitably Became Rather Dull And Niggly, And They Began To Imagine That This Was Therefore The Fault Of The Worlds They'd Settled On.
Successful
Boredom
Dull
But For A Moment Dirk Had A Sense Of Inifinite Loss And Sadness That Somewhere Among The Frenzy Of Information Noise That Daily Rattled The Lives Of Men He Thought He Might Have Heard A Few Notes That Denoted The Movements Of Gods.
Sadness
Loss
Men
Well, I Mean, Yes Idealism, Yes The Dignity Of Pure Research, Yes The Pursuit Of Truth In All Its Forms, But There Comes A Point I'm Afraid Where You Begin To Suspect That The Entire Multidimensional Infinity Of The Universe Is Almost Certainly Being Run By A Bunch Of Maniacs. And If It Comes To A Choice Between Spending Yet Another Ten Million Years Finding That Out, And On The Other Hand Just Taking The Money And Running, Then I For One Could Do With The Exercise.
Running
Mean
Exercise
So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish.
Democracies Have
Long
Dolphins
Ford Prefect Suppressed A Little Giggle Of Evil Satisfaction, Realized That He Had No Reason To Suppress It, And Laughed Out Loud, A Wicked Laugh.
Evil
Laughing
Wicked
Can't Stand All These Poisonous Creatures, All These Snakes And Insects And Fish And Things. Wretched Things, Biting Everybody. And Then People Expect Me To Tell Them What To Do About It. I'll Tell Them What To Do. Don't Get Bitten In The First Place. (quoting Dr. Struan Sutherland)
Snakes
People
Drs
Most Of The Time Spent Wrestling With Technologies That Don't Quite Work Yet Is Just Not Worth It For End Users, However Much Fun It Is For Nerds.
Fun
Wrestling
Technology
There's Nothing Worse Than Sitting Down To Write A Novel And Saying, "well, Okay, I'm Going To Do Something Of High Artistic Worth." It's Funny.
Writing
Sitting Down
Artistic
Even A Manically Depressed Robot Is Better To Talk To Than Nobody.
Robots
If It Looks Like A Duck, And Quacks Like A Duck, We Have At Least To Consider The Possibility That We Have A Small Aquatic Bird Of The Family Anatidae On Our Hands.
Family
Integrity
Patriotic
Arthur Felt Happy. He Was Terribly Pleased That The Day Was For Once Working Out So Much According To Plan. Only Twenty Minutes Ago He Had Decided He Would Go Mad, And Now Here He Was Already Chasing A Chesterfield Sofa Across The Fields Of Prehistoric Earth.
Work Out
Mad
Twenties
My Universe Is My Eyes And My Ears. Anything Else Is Hearsay.
Eye
Ears
Hearsay
We Have Normality. I Repeat, We Have Normality. Anything You Still Can't Cope With Is Therefore Your Own Problem.
Problem
Reincarnation
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
The Encyclopedia Galactica Defines A Robot As A Mechanical Apparatus Designed To Do The Work Of A Man. The Marketing Division Of The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Defines A Robot As "your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Defines The Marketing Devision Of The Sirius Cybernetic Corporation As "a Bunch Of Mindless Jerks Who'll Be The First Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes.
Wall
Fun
Men
And Then, One Thursday, Nearly Two Thousand Years After One Man Had Been Nailed To A Tree For Saying How Great It Would Be To Be Nice To People For A Change, A Girl Sitting On Her Own In A Small Café In Rickmansworth Suddenly Realized What It Was That Had Been Going Wrong All This Time, And She Finally Knew How The World Could Be Made A Good And Happy Place. This Time It Was Right, It Would Work, And No One Would Have To Get Nailed To Anything.
Girl
Nice
Men
In Order To Fly, All One Must Do Is Simply Miss The Ground.
Order
Missing
Racist
Being Literate As A Writer Is Good Craft, Is Knowing Your Job, Is Knowing How To Use Your Tools Properly And Not To Damage The Tools As You Use Them.
Jobs
Knowing
Tools
It Startled Him Even More When Just After He Was Awarded The Galactic Institute's Prize For Extreme Cleverness He Got Lynched By A Rampaging Mob Of Respectable Physicists Who Had Finally Realized That The One Thing They Really Couldn't Stand Was A Smart-ass.
Smart
Science
Lynching
Let Us Be Dreamers, Thinkers, Speculative Philosophers, Or As Our Spouses Would Have It: Idiots
Dreamer
Philosopher
Idiot
Fifteen Years Was A Long Time To Be Stranded Anywhere, Particularly Somewhere As Mind-boggingly Dull As Earth.
Years
Long
Mind
Radio Did Not Kill Books And Television Did Not Kill Radio Or Movies - What Television Did Kill Was Cinema Newsreel. Tv Does It Much Better Because It Can Deliver It Instantly. Who Wants Last Week's News?
Book
Doe
Cinema
He Turned Slowly Like A Fridge Door Opening.
Doors
Fridges
Opening
It Is Folly To Say You Know What Is Happening To Other People. Only They Know, If They Exist. They Have Their Own Universes Of Their Own Eyes And Ears.
Eye
People
Ears
The Fact Is, I Don't Know Where My Ideas Come From. Nor Does Any Writer. The Only Real Answer Is To Drink Way Too Much Coffee And Buy Yourself A Desk That Doesn't Collapse When You Beat Your Head Against It.
Real
Coffee
Ideas
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