Thinkers split into two types: those who know one big thing, and those who know many

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin borrowed a fragment from the Greek poet Archilochus — 'the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing' — to sort thinkers and writers into two broad types: hedgehogs, who relate everything to one overarching idea, and foxes, who draw on a wide range of experiences without forcing them into one system. Berlin used the essay to argue Leo Tolstoy was, by temperament, a brilliant fox who spent his life desperately wanting to be a hedgehog.

— Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History — 1953