I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

Adams wryly describes the serendipity of learning: much knowledge comes not from linear study but from detours—following a reference, chasing a footnote, or browsing adjacent entries and discovering unexpected connections. The remark also captures a pre-digital habit of scholarship and journalism, when dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference books invited wandering as much as retrieval. Implicitly, the quote defends curiosity and “unproductive” browsing as intellectually productive, suggesting that the mind’s best acquisitions often occur while pursuing something else. It’s a compact argument for open-ended reading and for the value of chance in research.