“Not the why but the what.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Last update Oct. 23, 2017. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Not the why but the what." by Ernest Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway 501

American author and journalist 1899–1961

Related quotes

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Source: Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972

“Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!

Source: Absalom, Absalom!

“And I will not ask what all others ask of you - why? Because what I have come to understand is that there is no why.”

Ian Cameron Esslemont book Return of the Crimson Guard

To ask why is to impose expectations on mute existence - expectations it is in no way obliged to meet or even extend. And so I make no more, ask no more.
Return of the Crimson Guard (2008)

“There are lesser people not for what they are, but for why they are.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

“"Why is this good? Why bruh… this good?" [Ao Oni bursts in. ] "AAGH -! …What the hell?! How was I supposed to do anything?! What was that?!"”

Markiplier (1989) American YouTuber and Internet personality

Video game commentary, Ao Oni (August 2013)

“Why try to pursue what is completed?”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

“Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?”

Artemus Ward (1834–1867) American writer

Moses, the Sassy.

“And so, what we've done all of these years is very simple, is use the little tool, which is ask three whys in a row. Because the first why you always have a good answer for. The second why, it starts getting difficult. By the third why, you don't really know why you're doing what you're doing.”

Ricardo Semler (1959) Brazilian businessman

TED: "How to run a company with (almost) no rules" https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules/ (October 2014)

“Why do we know what we know and why don't we know what we don't know? What should we know and what shouldn't we know? How might we know differently?”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Value-free science?: Purity and power in modern knowledge, 1991, p. 13

“Who, or why, or which, or what,
Is the Akond of Swat?”

Edward Lear (1812–1888) British artist, illustrator, author and poet

The Akond of Swat http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/akond.html, l. 1 (1877).