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About this quote

What does it mean?
Over-information can prevent genuine discovery or insight.
In plain terms
Too much writing makes it hard to learn anything new.
What can you take from it?
Seek fresh sources instead of rehashing old ones.

Where it applies

  • research
  • learning
  • reading

Putting it to work

  • find new angles
  • limit background reading

Questions to consider

  • How much is enough?
  • Can you learn from nothing?

Another view

Research often requires existing work.

More from James Thurber

  1. Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

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  2. Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

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  3. Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow line often separates affirmation from negation, sense from nonsense, and one s…

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