Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The author prefers the imaginative impact of a fairy tale over the exhaustive facts of an encyclopedia.
- In plain terms
- Fiction is more valuable than facts.
- What can you take from it?
- Imagination outweighs data.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Which do you prefer: stories or facts?
Another view
Encyclopedias provide essential foundational knowledge.
More from Stephen Leacock
Synopsis of Previous Chapters: There are no Previous Chapters.
Permalink to quote #31 On the same bill and on the same side of it there should not be two charges for the same thing.
Permalink to quote #29 The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.
Permalink to quote #32
Related quotes
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have r…
Arnold BennettArnold Bennett quote #1 When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it becau…
Randall JarrellRandall Jarrell quote #3 In as much as any invisible, unbelievable, unknowable fictional character is, yes.
Tamsin GreigTamsin Greig quote #3