"It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers."

James Thurber Journalism See all quotes by James Thurber →

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More by James Thurber

“It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all.”

“All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.”

“The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.”

“It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.”

“Somebody has said that woman's place is in the wrong. That's fine. What the wrong needs is a woman's presence and a woman's touch. She is far better equipped than men to set it right.”

“With 60 staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Some of our brethren are so very full of learning, that you cannot mention any thing to them which they do not know better than yourself!!— nothing is strange to them!!— they knew every thing years ag…"

— David Walker (abolitionist)

Social Activism1796–1830

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"... not to the learned and experienced mathematicians who are already, or should be, better acquainted with them... have studied mechanics more as a subject of curiosity and a hobby, than with any vie…"

— Jacob Leupold

Literature1674–1727

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"The exposition or exhibition and fair are primarily for the promotion of industry and commerce; the museum for the development of learning."

— George Brown Goode

Literature1851–1896

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"I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here, how to avoid poi…"

— Kurt Vonnegut

Literature1922–2007

#knowledge