“Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.”
Qui stultis videri eruditi volunt stulti eruditis videntur.
Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor
Book X, Chapter VII, 21
See also: An X among Ys, a Y among Xs
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
“Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places.”
Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer
Source: American Wife
“Foolish: It's all foolish. Life is a farce— a stupid, sickening farce played out by fools.”
David Gemmell book The King Beyond the Gate
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 16
Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter
“In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes.”
Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World
Thom Merrilin
(15 January 1990)
Source: To the Blight
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
Bacchæ l. 480 <br class="br">Variant translation: To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. <br class="br">Variant translation: He were a fool, methinks, who would utter wisdom to a fool. (translated by Edward Philip Coleridge) <br class="br">Variant translation: Wise words being brought to blinded eyes will seem as things of nought. ( translated by Gilbert Murray http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8418/8418-h/8418-h.htm) <br class="br">Source: The Bacchae
“A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.”
Un sot savant est sot plus qu'un sot ignorant.
Act IV, sc. iii
Les Femmes Savantes (1672)
“There are foolish people who recognize their foolishness and use it skillfully.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Il y a des gens niais qui se connaissent et qui emploient habilement leur niaiserie.
Maxim 208.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.”
Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer
As quoted in The Cynic's Breviary : Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort (1902) as translated by William G. Hutchison, p. 37
