Planet of the Apes

by Pierre Boulle

Pompous, solemn, pedantic, devoid of originality and critical sense, intent on preserving tradition, blind and deaf to all innovation, they form the substratum of every academy. Endowed with a good memory, they learn an enormous amount by heart and from books. Then they themselves write other books, in which they repeat what they have read, thereby earning the respect of their fellow orangutans.

Unaware of where they come from, who they are, or where they are going, they no doubt suffer from this lack of knowledge.

“After the congress,” she told me, “when you have been recognized and accepted as a rational being, we will see about him.”

The good Lord does not shoot dice, as a certain physicist once said. Nothing happens by mere chance in the cosmos. My voyage to the world of Betelgeuse was decreed by a superior consciousness. It is up to me to show myself worthy of the choice and to be the new savior of this human race in decline.

“The orangutans hate you because you are the living proof of their scientific aberrations, and the gorillas consider you too dangerous to be allowed at liberty much longer.

To most of the apes, a man is a man and nothing more. The differences between one individual and another do not strike them.

“Oh, darling, it’s impossible. It’s a shame, but I can’t, I can’t. You are really too unattractive!”

"You're so damn ugly." Lol.