“Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.”

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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 18, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Douglas Bader photo
Douglas Bader 8
British World War II flying ace 1910–1982

Related quotes

Plutarch photo

“Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Bob Dylan photo

“Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Cato the Elder photo

“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.”

Cato the Elder (-234–-149 BC) politician, writer and economist (0234-0149)

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.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 49
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — and the fools know it.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

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.

Thomas Hobbes photo
Mateo Alemán photo

“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)

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“5779. Wise Men learn by other Men's Harms; Fools, by their own.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

Thomas Henry Huxley photo

“Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1870s, On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History (1874)

Related topics