Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“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.
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Douglas Bader8
British World War II flying ace 1910–1982Related quotes
“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)
“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
“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.
“Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588
“The wise man's rule is worth much more to him than the fool's revenue.”
Mateo Alemán book Guzmán de Alfarache
Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)
“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)
“Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)
“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)