"In order to be eligible to play it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies, a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox he was not any smarter."

James Thurber Journalism See all quotes by James Thurber →

React to this quote

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

"Thou mayest foresee... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated…"

— Marcus Aurelius

Philosophy

#life

"‘Shaped by student life in England, my wife and I are aghast at this frenetic sociability before the new weeks begins, this almost philistine uncaringness for the idea of Monday morning.’"

— Amit Chaudhuri

Literature1962

#life

"…as an actor, I never am attracted to just playing a physicality or a bit – just having a disability or an accent or something isn’t attractive to be because it can kind of be like a party trick. When…"

— Hong Chau

Entertainment1979

#life

"Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them; and therefore they are of the colour of night, that is black. And in cold countries…"

— Leonardo da Vinci

Mathematics1452–1519

#life