The Hedgehog and the Fox

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." That fragment is nearly all that survives of Archilochus, and Isaiah Berlin uses it to divide the writers of the world in two: hedgehogs, who bend everything toward a single organising vision, and foxes, who pursue many ends at once and distrust any system that would tidy them. He half meant it as a party game.