Quotes about fools

A collection of quotes on the topic of fools, fool, man, making.

Best quotes about fools

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“A fool is known by his Speech; and a wise man by Silence.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Puck, Act III, scene ii.
Variant: Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him.
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Source: An Essay on Criticism

“We are all fools in love”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”

Euripidés The Bacchae

Bacchæ l. 480 Variant translation: To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. Variant translation: He were a fool, methinks, who would utter wisdom to a fool. (translated by Edward Philip Coleridge) 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) Source: The Bacchae

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

“fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.”

Todd Strasser (1950) American author of young-adult and middle grade novels

Source: Count Your Blessings

Quotes about fools

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“Fool me one time, shame on you. Fool me twice, can't put the blame on you. Fool me three times, fuck the peace sign. Load the chopper, let it rain on you.”

J. Cole (1985) American Song Writer, Rapper and former Pro Basketball Player, From Fayetteville, North Carolina

Source: Song No Role Modelz

Peace, Time

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Life

“I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

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

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Touchstone, Act V, scene i
Source: As You Like It (1599–1600)

Wise, For Men, Thinking

“Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

As quoted in 101 People You Won't Meet in Heaven: The Twisted Achievements of the Most Brutal and Sadistic Individuals the World Has Ever Known (2007) by Michael Powell, p. 148

God

“Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Men

“If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

“You can fool some people some times but you cant fool all the people all the time”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

People, Time

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Variant: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Deep, People, World, Problem

“Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Thom Merrilin
(15 October 1991)

For women, Women, Men, Forgiveness

“Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching?”

George Orwell book A Clergyman's Daughter

A Clergyman's Daughter, Ch. 2 (1935)

Life, Thinking

“Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.

People, Understanding

“Consider that we shouldn’t call our brother a fool, since we don’t know ourselves what we are.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

“The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015 From interviews and talks

People, Communication, Laughter, Heart

“Dwelling on one side of the Chauci and Chatti, the Cherusci long cherished, unassailed, an excessive and enervating love of peace. This was more pleasant than safe, for to be peaceful is self-deception among lawless and powerful neighbours. Where the strong hand decides, moderation and justice are terms applied only to the more powerful; and so the Cherusci, ever reputed good and just, are now called cowards and fools, while in the case of the victorious Chatti success has been identified with prudence. The downfall of the Cherusci brought with it also that of the Fosi, a neighbouring tribe, which shared equally in their disasters, though they had been inferior to them in prosperous days.”

Tacitus book Germania

Source: Germania (98), Chapter 36

Peace, Justice, Success, Strong

“A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Source: How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless

Source: Mostly Harmless

People

“Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention.”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

World, Way

“The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 52
Context: The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them.

People, Truth

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Wise, Question, Learning

“Only priests and fools are fearless and I've never been on the best of terms with God.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

God

“Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

Learning

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This is probably the most famous of apparently apocryphal remarks attributed to Lincoln. Despite it being cited variously as from an 1856 speech, or a September 1858 speech in Clinton, Illinois, there are no known contemporary records or accounts substantiating that he ever made the statement. The earliest known appearance is October 29, 1886 in the Milwaukee Daily Journal http://anotherhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fooling-people-earlier.html. It later appeared in the New York Times on August 26 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30817FF3E5413738DDDAF0A94D0405B8784F0D3 and August 27 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00E15FF3E5413738DDDAE0A94D0405B8784F0D3, 1887. The saying was repeated several times in newspaper editorials later in 1887. In 1888 and, especially, 1889, the saying became commonplace, used in speeches, advertisements, and on portraits of Lincoln. In 1905 and later, there were attempts to find contemporaries of Lincoln who could recall Lincoln saying this. Historians have not, generally, found these accounts convincing. For more information see two articles in For the People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association, "'You Can Fool All of the People' Lincoln Never Said That", by Thomas F. Schwartz ( V. 5, #4, Winter 2003, p. 1 http://abrahamlincolnassociation.org/Newsletters/5-4.pdf) and "A New Look at 'You Can Fool All of the People'" by David B. Parker ( V. 7, #3, Autumn 2005, p. 1 http://abrahamlincolnassociation.org/Newsletters/7-3.pdf); also the talk page. The statement has also sometimes been attributed to P. T. Barnum, although no references to this have been found from the nineteenth century. Variants: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. You can fool all the people some time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time. Disputed

People, Time

“On adultery: "Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Home

“I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Hallelujah"
Various Positions (1984)

Truth, Feeling

“Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Also told to Charles Larpenteur at Fort Union in 1867. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 73.

People, Coffee, Time

“A fool's mind is at the mercy of his tongue and a wise man's tongue is under the control of his mind.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“Whoever says that he "belongs to his time" is only saying that he agrees with the largest number of fools at that moment.”

Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) Colombian writer and philosopher

Sucesivos Escolios a un Texto Implícito (1992)

Time

“By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

The Sayings of the Wise (1555)

Silence

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

God, Age, World, Education

“Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

Making love

“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”

Thucydides Greek historian and Athenian general

Thinking, Fight

“There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speech in http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020917-7.html Nashville, Tennessee, (September 17, 2002), in which the president confused a centuries-old proverb ("Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.") 2000s, 2002

“I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Stupidity, Painting

“Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

Source: My Name is Red

Love

“One part brave, three parts fool!”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Variant: Thats the spirit-one part brave, three parts fool.
Source: Eragon

Parting

“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

“We don't have education, we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

As recorded in Time Will Tell (1992), a documentary by Declan Lowney
Variant: We don't have education we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool.
Source: Bob Marley - Legend

Education

“Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.”

Oscar Wilde book The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Source: The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Love, Life

“My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Music

“Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Source: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Boy

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Life, Funny

“They are fools who kiss and tell'--
Wisely has the poet sung.
Man may hold all sorts of posts
If he'll only hold his tongue.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Kiss

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

God, People, World, Color

“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Poem, "Liberty's old story" in Pansies (Third typing, ribbon copy - 231 poems, c. 11-28 February 1929)

Fight, Men, Children

“Consider the source… Don't be a fool by listening to a fool.”

Sylvester Stallone (1946) American actor, screenwriter, and film director

Source: Sly Moves: My Proven Program to Lose Weight, Build Strength, Gain Will Power, and Live your Dream

“He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Variant: He who loves not Wine, Women and Song
Remains a fool his whole life long

Love, Life, Women, Wine

“Satan fools and feigns, blows and bluffs, and we so often take his threats to heart and forget the "exceeding greatness of God's power to us.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Why Revival Tarries

God, Heart, Forgetting

“Don't be fooled by your own wisdom”

Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) Polish writer

Wisdom

“A man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

World, Search

“A fool is always troublesome, a man of sense perceives when he pleases or is tiresome; he goes away the very minute before it might have been thought he stayed too long.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

2
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

Sense

“No one has the right to make a boy learn Latin, because learning is a matter for individual choice; but if in a Latin class, a boy fools all the time, the class should throw him out, because he interferes with the freedom of others.”

A.S. Neill book Summerhill

Source: Summerhill (1960), p. 356

Boy, Freedom, Learning, Time

“The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Lover of God's Law Filled with Peace (January 1888) http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2004.pdf

Men, God, Way, Heart

“Chill out, what're you yelling for? Lay back. It's all been done before, and if? You could only let it be? You will see, I like you the way you are. When we're driving in your car and you're talking to me one and one. But you've become somebody else, like everyone else! You're watching your back, like you can't relax. You're trying to be cool; you look like a fool to me.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Complicated"
Let Go (2002)

Cars, Way

“Despair is the conclusion of fools.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

The Wondrous Tale of Alroy pt. 10, ch. 17.
Books

Despair

“A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in The Truth in Words: Inspiring Quotes for the Reflective Mind (2002) by Paras, p. 92

“The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine chap.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

Nauka pobezhdat, Dokumenty, vol. III, p. 504, cited in af.mil http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1986/nov-dec/menning.html. Compare with "The bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about." from "The Science of Victory," 1796.

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

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Touchstone, Act V, scene i
Misattributed

Wise, For Men, Thinking

“I made a change from a common thief, to up-close and personal with Robin Leach, and I'm far from cheap. I smoke skunk with my peeps all day, spread love it's the Brooklyn way. The moet and alize keeps me pissy. Girls used to diss me, now they write letters cuz they miss me. I never thought it could happen this rapping stuff. I was too used to packing gats and stuff. Now honeys play me close like butter played toast, from the Mississippi down to the East Coast. Condos in queens, indoor for weeks. sold out seats to hear Biggy Smalls speak. Living life without fear, putting 5 carats in my baby girls ears. Lunchies, brunchies. Interviews by the pool, considered a fool 'cause I dropped out of high school. Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood and it's still all good.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

Love, Life, Fear, School

“I would take to be quite a fool any man who would make a book full of laws and statutes for an apple tree telling it how to bear apples and not thorns, when the tree is able by its own nature to do this better than the man with all his books can describe and demand.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), p. 89

Books, Law, Nature, Tree

“Fool, if you be cancer, I be the cure.”

Vico C (1971) American rapper and singer of Puerto Rican descent

"Bueno, si mi pueblo perece, por falta de conocimiento. Aqui le va una aspirina
The first sentence is from the Book of Hosea, 4:6.

“Don't let these tattoos fool you. I'm straight edge. I'm a man of great discipline; I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs… my addiction is wrestling - my obsession is competition. Discipline. My name is C…M…Punk.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Extreme Championship Wrestling. July 4th, 2006.
This was Punk's debut on ECW television.
Extreme Championship Wrestling

Drink, Tattoo

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Jim Elliot (1927–1956) Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

Journal excerpt from Shadow of the Almighty (1989) by Elisabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot, 1949
This quote is a paraphrase of Elliot's from the original quote (below) by English nonconformist clergyman Philip Henry (1631-1696)
Misattributed

“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Age of Reason

L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason) (1945)

Death, Way, Game, Evil

“Few men are controlled by reason, and few are pleased by a right purpose. The mob, rather, is led to what was plainly invented for oblivion of its cares. For it supposes that whatever serves its pleasure must also be linked to the happiness of the age. Therefore, let us grant the expenses, and not be forever giving from rational considerations. Sometimes it is useful to play the fool, and so control the joys the people long for.”

Cassiodorus Variae

Bk. 3, no. 51; pp. 70-71.
Variae

Men, People, Pleasure, Age

“Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Fourfold Treasure (1871) No. 991 http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0991.htm

Wisdom, Men, Knowledge

“Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever can not take care of themself without that law is both. For a wounded man shall say to his assailant, "If I live, I will kill you. If I die, you are forgiven."”

Randy Blythe (1971) American musician

Such is the rule of honor.
Opening to 'Omerta', from the album Ashes Of The Wake
Lyrics

Law

“A fool boasts about what little he knows. A wise man keeps quiet about what he knows and is safe.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Flowers of Wisdom

“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.

Wise, Men, Learning

“To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tdoaom/ "As I Please" (1943–1947) Context: The important thing is to discover which individuals are honest and which are not, and the usual blanket accusation merely makes this more difficult. The atmosphere of hatred in which controversy is conducted blinds people to considerations of this kind. To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like. It is this habit of mind, among other things, that has made political prediction in our time so remarkably unsuccessful.

Intelligence

“A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

As quoted in Shoptalk: learning to write with writers (1990), edited by Donald Morison Murray
General sources
Context: A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.' There's no difference on paper between the two.

“I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.”

U.G. Krishnamurti book Mind is a Myth

Quoted in Introduction by Terry Newland
Mind is a Myth (1987)
Context: I have assumed that the goal, enlightenment, exists. I have had to search and it is the search itself which has been choking me and keeping me out of my natural state. There is no such thing as spiritual or psychological enlightenment because there is no such thing as spirit or psyche. I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.

Life, Search

“The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

Cabal of the Cheval Pegasus (1585)
Context: The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life. The greatest asses of the world are those who, lacking all understanding and instruction, and void of all civil life and custom, rot in perpetual pedantry; those who by the grace of heaven would reform obscure and corrupted faith, salve the cruelties of perverted religion and remove abuse of superstitions, mending the rents in their vesture. It is not they who indulge impious curiosity or who are ever seeking the secrets of nature, and reckoning the courses of the stars. Observe whether they have been busy with the secret causes of things, or if they have condoned the destruction of kingdoms, the dispersion of peoples, fires, blood, ruin or extermination; whether they seek the destruction of the whole world that it may belong to them: in order that the poor soul may be saved, that an edifice may be raised in heaven, that treasure may be laid up in that blessed land, caring naught for fame, profit or glory in this frail and uncertain life, but only for that other most certain and eternal life.

Life, World, Faith, Religion

“If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. Here are just a few examples. I list below five types of nationalist, and against each I append a fact which it is impossible for that type of nationalist to accept, even in his secret thoughts:
: BRITISH TORY. Britain will come out of this war with reduced power and prestige.
: COMMUNIST. If she had not been aided by Britain and America, Russia would have been defeated by Germany.
: IRISH NATIONALIST. Eire can only remain independent because of British protection.
: TROTSKYIST. The Stalin regime is accepted by the Russian masses.
: PACIFIST. Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.
All of these facts are grossly obvious if one's emotions do not happen to be involved: but to the kind of person named in each case they are also intolerable, and so they have to be denied, and false theories constructed upon their denial. I come back to the astonishing failure of military prediction in the present war. It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Notes on Nationalism (1945)

War, People, Secret, Feeling

“To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool than to discover who is a clever man.”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

Reported in, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. (1917).

World

“We are constantly haunted by the qualities of self-interest and that is why we struggle to refrain ourselves from making fools of our behaviours.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“People will wish you to be good. And when you are good.
They will fool you. Experienced.”

Md Mim Akhtar

People

“A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Source: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.

Books, World, Reading

“If a man is a fool, the best thing is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

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

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Feeling

“And people who don’t dream, who don’t have any kind of imaginative life, they must… they must go nuts. I can’t imagine that.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Life, People, Dreams, Imagination

“Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Biff
Source: Death of a Salesman (1949)

Waiting

“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Source: The Writing of Thomas Paine

“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. Even so, God cannot save them from fools.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Variant: God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fool
Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 10: The American Forests 
Context: Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed — chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. … It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries … God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.

God, Disease, Tree

“You may be an idiot but I don't think you're a fool.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Thinking