It is better to have loafed and lost, than never…

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

Sourced, From Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time

“The Courtship of Arthur and Al”, The New Yorker (26 August 1939); Fables for Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated (1940). Parody of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Better to have loved and lost/than never to have loved at all.

Other James Thurber Quotes

Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched. - View Quote Details on Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette. - View Quote Details on But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the…
I’m 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I’d only be 48. That’s the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40. - View Quote Details on I’m 65 and I guess that puts me in with…
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. - View Quote Details on You can fool too many of the people too much…
Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge. - View Quote Details on Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but…
Love is blind, but desire just doesn’t give a good goddam. (sic) - View Quote Details on Love is blind, but desire just doesn’t give a good…
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. - View Quote Details on There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
All right, have it your way - you heard a seal bark! - View Quote Details on All right, have it your way - you heard a…
Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. - View Quote Details on Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else? - View Quote Details on Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody…