Foolishness

"FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life."

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

"To swallow gudgeons ere they're catch'd, And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd."

"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."

"Stultitiam simulare loco, prudentia summa est."

"More knave than fool."

"Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."

"A fool must now and then be right by chance."

"The solemn fog; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge."

"Defend me, therefore, common sense, say From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up."

"A fool who knows his foolishness is wise at least to that extent, but a fool who thinks himself wise is a fool indeed."

"Though all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he no more comprehends the Truth than a spoon tastes the flavor of the soup."

"Si 50 millions de personnes disent une bêtise, c'est quand même une bêtise."

"The first Degree of Folly, is to conceit one’s self wise; the second to profess it; the third to despise Counsel."

"A fool and a wise man are alike both in the starting-place—their birth, and at the post—their death; only they differ in the race of their lives."

"The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It's common (ez a gin'l rule) To every critter born of woman."

"The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow."

"The rest on outside merit but presume, Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room."

"So by false learning is good sense defac'd; Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools."

"We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so."

"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

"The fool is happy that he knows no more."

"Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it."

"Die and endow a college or a cat."

"A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him."

"And when it is said to them, "Believe as the people have believed," they say, "Should we believe as the foolish have believed?" Unquestionably, it is they who are the foolish, but they know (it) not."

"(Hud) said, "O my people, there is not foolishness in me, but I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds."

"Show forgiveness, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the foolish."

"Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom."

"Sir, for a quart d'écu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the entail from all remainders."

"A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun."

"O noble fool! A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear."

"I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad: and to travel for it too!"

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

"Fools are not mad folks."

"Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in 's own house."

"Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us."

"How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!"

"A fool's bolt is soon shot."

"The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words; and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word Defy the matter."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

"To wisdom he's a fool that will not yield."

"This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit."

"Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself."

"I hold him but a fool that will endanger His body for a girl that loves him not."

"You may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon As or by oath remove or counsel shake The fabric of his folly."

"For take thy ballaunce if thou be so wise, And weigh the winde that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow."

"Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed."

"At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan."

"To climb life's worn, heavy wheel Which draws up nothing new."

"Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die."

"We bleed, we tremble; we forget, we smile— The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry."

"The folly of one man is the fortune of another."

"Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire."

"Fool me no fools."

"Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame."

"Mas acompañados y paniguados debe di tener la locura que la discrecion."

"Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools."

"Les plus courtes folies sont les meilleures."

"Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce."

"Stultorum plena sunt omnia."

"Culpa enim illa, bis ad eundem, vulgari reprehensa proverbio est."

"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"

"L'exactitude est le sublime des sots."

"A rational reaction against irrational excesses and vagaries of skepticism may * * * readily degenerate into the rival folly of credulity."

"He is a fool Who only sees the mischiefs that are past."

"Stultorum incurata malus pudor ulcera celat."

"Adde cruorem Stultitiæ, atque ignem gladio scrutare."

"A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense."

"Fears of the brave and follies of the wise."

"Un fat celui que les sots croient un homme de mérite."

"Hélas! on voit que de tout temps Les Petits ont pâti des sottises des grands."

"Ce livre n'est pas long, on le voit en une heure; La plus courte folie est toujours la meilleure."

"Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit."

"Un sot n'a pas assez d'étoffe pour être bon."

"A fool! a fool! my coxcomb for a fool!"

"I have play'd the fool, the gross fool, to believe The bosom of a friend will hold a secret Mine own could not contain."

"Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so."

"Quantum est in rebus inane! How much folly there is in human affairs."

"An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave."

"No creature smarts so little as a fool."

"Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please."

"Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise."

"Every fool will be meddling."

"Answer a fool according to his folly."

"Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

"Qui stultis videri eruditi volunt, stulti eruditis videntur."

"After a man has sown his wild oats in the years of his youth, he has still every year to get over a few weeks and days of folly."

"Stultus est qui fructus magnarum arborum spectat, altitudinem non metitur."

"Insipientis est dicere, Non putaram."

"Where lives the man that has not tried, How mirth can into folly glide, And folly into sin!"

"Inter cætera mala hoc quoque habet Stultitia semper incipit vivere."

"'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long We hold the earth from heaven away."

"He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells, and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again."

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers."

"Chi conta i colpi e la dovuta offesa, Mentr' arde la tenzon, misura e pesa?"

"Le sot est comme le peuple, qui se croit riche de peu."

"Qui se croit sage, ô ciel! est un grand fou."

"The greatest men May ask a foolish question, now and then."