Named source · 1902

The Admirable Crichton Quotes by J. M. Barrie: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to The Admirable Crichton by or associated with J. M. Barrie, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

More by J. M. Barrie

Read the source

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.

Primary / edition source · gutenberg.org ↗

Represented passages

1 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1

Read & copy

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

J. M. Barrie

Meaning & context

Barrie reverses the cliché that age brings complete wisdom, making youthful certainty—not age—the comic claim to omniscience.

Source details

The Admirable Crichton, Act I, Project Gutenberg #3490. Ernest Woolley repeatedly delivers “I am not young enough to know everything” as a self-consciously clever epigram while Agatha, Treherne and the others struggle to understand it; Crichton later says he has no idea what Ernest meant. It remains fictional comic dialogue rather than J. M. Barrie autobiography or a factual claim about age and knowledge.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Open a public or archival text connected with these quotations

Prominent ideas connected with the quotations represented here

1 quotations with source context and meaning

Continue through other sources by J. M. Barrie