„You're right. I am crazy. But you know what else? I don't care.“
— Tupac Shakur rapper and actor 1971 - 1996
Quotes about fools
A collection of quotes on the topic of fools, fool, can, man.
Best quotes about fools
„Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.“
— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994
Variant: Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
„I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.“
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
„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)
„Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist 1844 - 1900
Misattributed
„It's no shame to be born stupid. Only to die stupid.“
— Erich Maria Remarque, book Three Comrades
Source: Three Comrades
„The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.“
— Winston S. Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874 - 1965
„The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.“
— Arthur Schopenhauer German philosopher 1788 - 1860
Source: Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays
„We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.“
— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968
1960s, A Christmas Sermon (1967)
Variant: We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.
All quotes about fools
Total 1694 quotes fools, filter:
„She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.“
— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994
Variant: she’s mad, but she’s magic.
— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963
Quoted in Bernard Weintraub, "Playboy Interview: Johnny Depp," Playboy (May 2004)
Context: I do have an affinity for damaged people, in life, in roles. I don't know why. We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we are all somewhat screwy, every single one of us.
— Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017
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
„Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something“
— Aristotle Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy -384 - -321 BC
— Chrysippus ancient Greek philosopher -281 - -208 BC
As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.
— Jean Vanier Canadian humanitarian 1928 - 2019
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
„If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me.“
— Angelina Jolie American actress, film director, and screenwriter 1975
„You can fool some people some times but you cant fool all the people all the time“
— Bob Marley Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician 1945 - 1981
— Marilyn Monroe American actress, model, and singer 1926 - 1962
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.
„I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.“
— Lewis Carroll English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer 1832 - 1898
Variant: I'm not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.
„One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.“
— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943
„Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.“
— Marcus Tullius Cicero Roman philosopher and statesman -106 - -43 BC
— Nicolás Gómez Dávila Colombian writer and philosopher 1913 - 1994
Sucesivos Escolios a un Texto Implícito (1992)
„Consider that we shouldn’t call our brother a fool, since we don’t know ourselves what we are.“
— Paracelsus Swiss physician and alchemist 1493 - 1541
Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)
— L. Ron Hubbard American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology 1911 - 1986
"Times Must Change" in Ability # 179 (20 March 1966).
— J. Cole American Song Writer, Rapper and former Pro Basketball Player, From Fayetteville, North Carolina 1985
Source: Song No Role Modelz
— George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States 1946
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
— Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor 1856 - 1943
"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)
Context: The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
— George Carlin American stand-up comedian 1937 - 2008
Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)
Source: When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?
„A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.“
— Dogen Japanese Zen buddhist teacher 1200 - 1253
Source: How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
„fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.“
— Todd Strasser American author of young-adult and middle grade novels 1950
Source: Count Your Blessings
„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
„Consider the source… Don't be a fool by listening to a fool.“
— Sylvester Stallone American actor, screenwriter, and film director 1946
Source: Sly Moves: My Proven Program to Lose Weight, Build Strength, Gain Will Power, and Live your Dream
„A man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.“
— Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors 1943 - 1971
„A fool is someone whose pencil wears out before its eraser does.“
— Marilyn vos Savant US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer 1946
As quoted in The Truth in Words: Inspiring Quotes for the Reflective Mind (2002) by Paras, p. 92
— Sitting Bull Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man 1831 - 1890
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.
„Fool, if you be cancer, I be the cure.“
— Vico C American rapper and singer of Puerto Rican descent 1971
"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.
— Phil Brooks American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist 1978
Extreme Championship Wrestling. July 4th, 2006.
This was Punk's debut on ECW television.
Extreme Championship Wrestling
„By Silence, the discretion of a man is known: and a fool, keeping Silence, seemeth to be wise.“
— Pythagoras ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher -585 - -495 BC
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
„A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating“
— Frank Herbert American writer 1920 - 1986
As quoted in Shoptalk: learning to write with writers (1990), edited by Donald Morison Murray<!-- Cook Publishers -->
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.
— Swami Vivekananda Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher 1863 - 1902
Source: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 Vols.
„If a man is a fool, the best thing is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.“
— Woodrow Wilson American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921) 1856 - 1924
„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
„Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?“
— Orhan Pamuk Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient 1952
Source: My Name is Red
— John Muir Scottish-born American naturalist and author 1838 - 1914
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 <!-- Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 604-605 -->
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.
„Some may never live, but the crazy never die.“
— Hunter S. Thompson American journalist and author 1937 - 2005
„A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.“
— William Blake English Romantic poet and artist 1757 - 1827
— P. C. Cast American writer 1960
Source: Goddess of Light
„It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.“
— Mark Twain American author and humorist 1835 - 1910
Cited as an example of "What Mark Twain Didn't Say" in Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward, et al.
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
„I was wise enough never to grow up, while fooling people into believing I had.“
— Margaret Mead American anthropologist 1901 - 1978
„If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.“
— Jeffrey Archer, book Only Time Will Tell
Source: Only Time Will Tell
— Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970
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.
„Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.“
— Woody Guthrie American singer-songwriter and folk musician 1912 - 1967
„Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.“
— Stephen King, book Different Seasons
Source: Different Seasons
Source: The Prophecy Answer Book
„A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.“
— Molière, Les Femmes Savantes
Un sot savant est sot plus qu'un sot ignorant.
Act IV, sc. iii
Les Femmes Savantes (1672)
„A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.“
— Bruce Lee Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker 1940 - 1973
„In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.“
— George Orwell English author and journalist 1903 - 1950
No source for this quote among Orwell's writings has yet been located, and the earliest published source of this phrase found on Google Books is this snippet https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=kWD0AAAAMAAJ&q=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&dq=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs0MKSqpbKAhWH0iYKHXj6ABUQ6AEIJjAD from p. 5 of Science Dimension, Volumes 14–18 (1982) published by the National Research Council Canada. Quote Investigator has an article "In a Time of Universal Deceit – Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/24/truth-revolutionary/ indicating their attempts to trace the quote. The earliest similar remarks they had found were in a 1982 book titled “Partners in Ecocide: Australia’s Complicity in the Uranium Cartel” by Venturino Giorgio Venturini, where the word “universal” was omitted, and a specific originating text was not identified: "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Variants:
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.
Truth is treason in an empire of lies. (Often attributed by Ron Paul to Orwell but never sourced.)
In the mid-19th century Karl Georg von Raumer made a remark, which has a similar meaning. In Geschichte der Pedagogic (1855), he states: 'Jede keimende Wahrheit ist revolutionär gegen den entgegenstehenden herrschenden Irrthum, jede keimende Tugend revolutionär gegen das im Schwange gehende, ihr widersprechende Laster' which translates as: "Every germinating truth is revolutionary against the opposing ruling error, every germinating virtue is revolutionary against popular contradictory lies."
In 1898 French socialist Jean Jaurès said, "When a society, when an institution, lives only by lies, truth is revolutionary." He was speaking with reference to the ongoing Dreyfus Affair. The statement is quoted in Ruth Harris, The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France (2010), p. 262. (She cites Le petit Meridional, 3 July 1898, as the original source.) This seems very close in spirit and in phrasing to the pseudo-Orwell quotation. (The cumulative index to the many volumes of Orwell's writing compiled and edited by Peter Davison does not reveal any direct references to Jaurès or the Dreyfus Affair.)
Disputed
Variant: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
„The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.“
— Alfred Bester, book The Stars My Destination
Source: The Stars My Destination
„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
„Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.“
— Charlie Chaplin British comic actor and filmmaker 1889 - 1977
— Charles Mackay, book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Source: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)
— Roald Dahl British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter 1916 - 1990
"Goodbye school" in Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
„A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.“
— Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Time Enough for Love (1973)
— Bertolt Brecht German poet, playwright, theatre director 1898 - 1956
"Solidarity song" [Solidaritätslied] (1931), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 186
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
„What kind of fool am I?
I never fell in love.“
— Lesley Bricusse English composer, lyricist and playwright 1931
Song What kind of fool am I?
— Marcus Garvey Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur 1887 - 1940
The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.
— Everett Dean Martin 1880 - 1941
Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 144
— Edouard Manet French painter 1832 - 1883
Quote from Manet's letter to Félix Bracquemond (18 March 1871); as cited in Manet by Himself (1995) by Julliet Wilson-Bareau
1850 - 1875
— Little Raven (Arapaho leader) Southern Arapaho chief 1810 - 1889
At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100
— Malcolm Muggeridge English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist 1903 - 1990
Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)
— E. W. Howe Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor 1853 - 1937
Ventures in Common Sense (1919), p87.