
Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The quote "Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools." is famous quote attributed to Douglas Bader (1910–1982), British World War II flying ace.
Brickhill 1954, p. 44. Note: (also quoted as "...for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.") In Reach for the Sky, this quote is attributed to Harry Day, the Royal Flying Corps First World War fighter ace.
Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to”
Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.”
Plutarch's Life of Cato
Variant: Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.
“A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them.”
Maxim 49
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
“Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and the fools know it.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Context: Do you think I don't understand what my friend, the Professor, long ago called the hydrostatic paradox of controversy?
Don't know what it means? - Well, I will tell you. You know, that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and the fools know it.
“Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools.”
“The wise man's rule is worth much more to him than the fool's revenue.”
Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)
“5779. Wise Men learn by other Men's Harms; Fools, by their own.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”
Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)
“Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.”
1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)