Quotes about fools
page 10

“Then sing as Martin Luther sang,
As Doctor Martin Luther sang,
“Who loves not wine, woman and song,
He is a fool his whole life long.””

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

A Credo, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Life, Wine, Singing

“At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don't have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us. They are saying that everyone is brutal, and the heroes must be as brutal as the villains or they turn into fools. There seems to be an assumption that if you're offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship. But this would deny those of us who don't believe in censorship the use of the only counterbalance: the freedom of the press to say that there's anything conceivably damaging in these films — the freedom to analyze their implications. If we don't use this critical freedom, we are implicitly saying that no brutality is too much for us — that only squares and people who believe in censorship are concerned with brutality. Actually, those who believe in censorship are primarily concerned with sex, and they generally worry about violence only when it's eroticized. This means that practically no one raises the issue of the possible cumulative effects of movie brutality. Yet surely, when night after night atrocities are served up to us as entertainment, it's worth some anxiety. We become clockwork oranges if we accept all this pop culture without asking what's in it. How can people go on talking about the dazzling brilliance of movies and not notice that the directors are sucking up to the thugs in the audience?”

Pauline Kael book Deeper into Movies

"Stanley Strangelove" (January 1972) http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0051.html, review of A Clockwork Orange Deeper into Movies (1973)

People, Pleasure, Sex, Freedom

“Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. … The theory of special genius, according to which for instance, it is supposed that a musical genius should be a fool at other subjects, confuses genius with talent. … There are many kinds of talent, but only one kind of genius, and that is able to choose any kind of talent and master it.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 112.

Music, Mathematics, Universe

“There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.”

John Armstrong (1709–1779) British poet

Book II, line 195.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

Way, Wealth

“It was easier to trip a fool than to knock him down.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Moiraine Damodred
(15 October 1993)

“There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.”

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

Sometimes attributed to Ackerman this actually originates with Nicolas Chamfort, as quoted in The Cynic's Breviary : Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort (1902) as translated by William G. Hutchison, p. 37
Misattributed

Idea

“John Brown deserves to be hung for being a hopeless fool! He attempted to capture Virginia with seventeen men when he ought to know that it would require at least twenty-five.”

Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) American politician

In Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens

Men

“4693. The older a Fool is, the worse he is.”

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

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

“Even a prince may be a fool”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Leslie Burke
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

“Life's tough, but I'm tougher! (I pity the fool)”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

Life

“The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: Dialogues in Limbo (1926), Ch. 3, P. 57

For Men

“[After struggle with heart disease] I've stopped eating meat, cheese, milk, even fish. No dairy at all. I've lost more than 20 pounds so far, aiming for about 30 before Chelsea's wedding. And I have so much more energy now! I feel great. … I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn't want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival. … The main thing that was hard for me actually … was giving up yogurt and hard cheese. I love that stuff, but it really made a big difference when I did it. … [To truly change the conditions that lead to bad habits and poor health] we have to demand it by changing the way we live. You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, and that of your family and your country.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

" Bill Clinton Explains Why He Became a Vegan http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-08-2013/bill-clinton-vegan.html" by Joe Conason, AARP The Magazine, August/September 2013. 2010s

Love, Health, Disease, Family

“The politician who steals is worse than a thief. He is a fool. With the grand opportunities all around for the man with a political pull, there’s no excuse for stealin’ a cent. p. 32”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 7, On The Shame of the Cities

“The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism
Essays (1625)

God, Heart

“The appalling thing is the degree of charity women are capable of. You see it all the time … love lavished on absolute fools. Love's a charity ward, you know.”

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer

Interview in The Observer, 1990

Love, Women, Time

“In recent years, demagogy, violence, cruelty, and vileness have seized a great country embarked on the path of socialist development. I refer, of course, to China. It is impossible without horror and pain to read about the mass contagion of anti-humanism being spread by "the great helmsman" and his accomplices, about the Red Guards who, according to the Chinese radio, "jumped with joy" during public executions of "ideological enemies" of Chairman Mao.
The idiocy of the cult of personality has assumed in China monstrous, grotesquely tragicomic forms, carrying to the point of absurdity many of the traits of Stalinism and Hitlerism. But this absurdity has proved effective in making fools of tens of millions of people and in destroying and humiliating millions of intelligent citizens.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships

Pain, People, Intelligence, Reading

“Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.”

Jonathan Swift book Cadenus and Vanessa

Cadenus and Vanessa (1713)

Men, School, Food

“By God you are the only great man, except George Pitt, that I care a farthing for, or would wear out a pair of shoes in seeking after. Long-headed cunning people and rich fools are so plentiful in our country that I don’t fear getting now and then a face to paint for bread, but a man of genius with truth and simplicity, sense and good nature, I think worth his weight in gold - [signed:] 'Your Likeness Man”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in Gainsborough's letter to Hon. Constantine Phipps, undated; as cited in 'My Dear Maggoty Sir – The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough' http://thedabbler.co.uk/2011/10/my-dear-maggoty-sir-the-letters-of-thomas-gainsborough/, review by Roger Hudson, in Slightly Foxed, 18 Oct, 2011 undated

God, People, Truth, Fear

“I hate people saying anything stupid. I don't really suffer fools very well at all. When people are acting like idiots, not that I'm not guilty of doing the odd idiotic thing myself from time to time, but when people say stupid things, it stresses me out. I have a pretty thick skin about people coming up to me and saying things to me when I'm out, I don't really mind that too much. but when people are just loud and annoying, it drives me crazy.”

Joshua Jackson (1978) Canadian actor

As quoted in the article 'End of an Era?' in Live and Kicking magazine (2000)

Hate, People, Stupidity, Suffering

“Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
A fool must now and then be right by chance.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: Conversation (1782), Line 96.

Chance, Falseness

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves "racialists." White supremacists now call themselves "white nationalists." The paranoid fringe now calls itself "alt-right." But the hate burns just as bright. And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. Don’t be fooled.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

Hate, Change

“There are passages in the Gospels that portray Jesus of Nazareth as narrowminded, vindictive, and even hypocritical. Jesus exhorted people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 5:44) and never to call others by demeaning or hurtful names (Matt. 5:22), yet he called his enemies a "brood of snakes" (Matt. 12:34), "sons of vipers" (Matt. 23:33), "blind fools" (Matt. 23:17). … How divine is the message that says for your finite failings you will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”

John Shelby Spong (1931) American bishop

Matt. 25:30
Source: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991), p. 21

Love, People, Hurt

“I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 17

Love, Men, Stupidity, Fear

“When will Sweden be full of Muslims? The short answer is never. They've talked themselves into such a tight corner, and so demonised anyone who questions mass immigration that they could no sooner put a limit on it now than they could click their heels and give a Nazi salute. It's out of the question. So on and on it will go, forever. A hundred thousand or more a year, every year, year after year. It will never stop. Not even when there's a mosque on every street corner blaring the call to prayer five times a day through loudspeakers into your face. That's what's coming, Sweden, and nobody deserves it more than you. Oh yes, you're a real shining "progressive" beacon, all right, a real example to us all – like the guy who dives head first into a thimble of water is an example to us all. … You deserve to see your culture destroyed. You're clearly not worthy of it. You deserve what's coming, but your children and grandchildren don't, and they're the ones who will pay the price for your irresponsible stupidity and cowardice. They will curse your memory for what you've done to them, especially the female ones, you nation of traitors, you society of lemmings, you ship of fools.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Sweden — Ship of fools" (13 October 2014) https://youtube.com/watch/?v=RZsvdg1dkJ4 2014

Children, Stupidity, Guy, Question

“when a fool fails he says I was unlucky, when a wise man fails he says what a fool I had been. Song "If I was a Cat" live version.”

Avner Strauss (1954) Israeli musician

2003 Blues Festival

Cats

“When all else fails, be willing to look like a fool. Maybe they will underestimate you later about something really important.”

Sarah Zettel (1966) American writer

Source: Bitter Angels (2009), Chapter 9 (p. 124)

“"When I was a freshman, I fooled around with shooting free throws this way: For some reason, I thought you had to stay within the top half of that free-throw circle, so I would step back to just inside the top of the circle, take off from behind the line and dunk. They outlawed that, but I wouldn't have done it in a game, anyway. I was a good free throw shooter in college." Actually he was a 62% free throw shooter, which is poor except in comparison to his 51% as a pro.”

Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999) basketball player

Dunking

Way, Game

“A cut glass English accent can fool unsuspecting Americans into detecting a brilliance that isn't there.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

2010s

“The acceleration of the number of traders buying into the market in the inflating bubble captures the oft-quoted observation that bubbles are times when the "greater fool theory" applies.”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 6, Hierarchies, Complex Fractal Dimensions, And Log Periodicity, p. 185.

Quotes, Time

“And we hold these truths to be self-evident:
Number one-- George W. Bush is not president.
Number two-- America is not a true democracy.
And, Number three-- the media is not fooling me.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Self-Evident
Song lyrics

Truth, Democracy

“It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.
But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

People, Personality, Indifference

“Surely just about everybody has faced a moral dilemma and secretly wished, "If only somebody — somebody I trusted — could just tell me what to do!" Wouldn't this be morally inauthentic? Aren't we responsible for making our own moral decisions? Yes, but the virtues of "do it yourself" moral reasoning have their limits, and if you decide, after conscientious consideration, that your moral decision is to delegate further moral decisions in your life to a trusted expert, then you have made your own moral decision. You have decided to take advantage of the division of labor that civilization makes possible and get the help of expert specialists.We applaud the wisdom of this course in all other important areas of decision-making (don't try to be your own doctor, the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and so forth). Even in the case of political decisions, like which way to vote, the policy of delegation can be defended. … Is the a dereliction of [one's] dut[y] as a citizen? I don't think so, but it does depend on my having good grounds for trusting [the delegate's] judgment. … That why those who have an unquestioning faith in the correctness of the moral teachings of their religion are a problem: if they themselves haven't conscientiously considered, on their own, whether their pastors or priests or rabbis or imams are worthy of this delegated authority over their own lives, then they are in fact taking a personally immoral stand.This is perhaps the most shocking implication of my inquiry, and I do not shrink from it, even though it may offend many who think of themselves as deeply moral. It is commonly supposed that it is entirely exemplary to adopt the moral teachings of one's own religion without question, because -- to put it simply — it is the word of God (as interpreted, always, by the specialists to whom one has delegated authority). I am urging, on the contrary, that anybody who professes that a particular point of moral conviction is not discussable, not debatable, not negotiable, simply because it is the word of God, or because the Bible says so, or because "that is what all Muslims [Hindus, Sikhs… ] [sic] believe, and I am a Muslim [Hindu, Sikh… ]" [sic], should be seen to be making it impossible for the rest of us to take their views seriously, excusing themselves from the moral conversation, inadvertently acknowledging that their own views are not conscientiously maintained and deserve no further hearing.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Life, Wisdom, God, Faith

“I beg you not to listen to the experts in this country anymore. The fools disguised in tweed jackets or ascots of the Ivy League campuses. The scholars and the experts and those who have been around in the State Department forever, blahdy blahdy blahdy. They couldn't find their way through an unlocked door at a locksmith shop. They come on TV and they lecture you about how everything is fine and everything is in a box. I have news for you: I believe it was the great philosopher Depeche Mode that said "nothing is impossible."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Life is outside of the box now and if you're inside of the box, you'll suffocate.
2014-12-16
The Glenn Beck Program
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/12/16/three-unbelievable-news-stories-three-crazy-glenn-predictions-one-must-watch-monologue/, quoted in * 2014-12-17
'I See The Future': Glenn Beck Begs His Audience 'Not To Listen To The Experts In This Country Anymore'
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/i-see-future-glenn-beck-begs-his-audience-not-listen-experts-country-anymore
2014-12-19
2010s, 2014

Life, Way, Country, Box

“Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 11

People, Time

“[Trump] keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we're some kind of fools for asking the question. Really? Your opposition was hacked and the Russians were responsible for it and your people were on the phone with Russia on the same day it was happening and we're fools for asking the questions? No sir. We are not fools for asking this question, and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people. Your supporters will support you either way. If your people were on the phone, what were they saying? We have a right to know, we absolutely do and that you call us fake news and put us down like children for asking these questions on behalf of the American people is inconsequential. The people deserve an answer to this question at very least.”

Shepard Smith (1964) television news anchor from the United States

As quoted in "Fox News' Shep Smith to Trump: You owe the American people answers" http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fox-news-shep-smith-to-trump-you-owe-the-american-people-answers/ar-AAn1RFA?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp (February 16, 2017), by Brooke Seipel, The Hill 2010s

Children, People, Way, Question

“I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president's Charlottesville statements. Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn. His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard. But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president's words. Why? In part because the morale and commitment of our forces-made up and sustained by men and women of all races--could be in the balance. Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America's ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished. And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants. But today they wonder. Where might this lead? To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?The potential consequences are severe in the extreme. Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme. He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize. State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute. And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.This is a defining moment for President Trump. But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children. They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching. Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Facebook statement https://www.facebook.com/mittromney/posts/10154652303536121 (18 August 2017) 2017

Women, Men, Children, People

“In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 345
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Festival of Fools

People, Sex, Fashion, Laughter

“…the Assistant Secretary in Charge of Administration (was) a job which should be undertaken only by a saint or a fool…the House and Senate subcommittees in charge of appropriations, their chairmen, and the Comptroller General's office make this job a perfect hell. Like an ill-tempered chatelaine of a medieval manor, her keys hanging from her belt, Congress parsimoniously and suspiciously doles out supplies for the shortest time, each item meticulously weighed and measured, each request at first harshly denied. Almost simultaneously yesterday's accounting goes on amid screamed accusation and denunciation of every purpose of policy.”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

Hell, Time, Housing, Perfection

“What relationship could exist between the lives of the fools and healthy rabble who were well, who slept well, who performed the sexual act well, who had never felt the wings of death on their face every moment—what relationship could exist between them and one like me who has arrived at the end of his rope and who knows that he will pass away gradually and tragically?”

Sadegh Hedayat book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Death

“The jibba jabba stops here! (I pity the fool)”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

“The reason Smolin's idea is interesting is that it may answer the challenge, "The universe is too good to be true. It looks like a put-up job." But, note that the Smolin hypothesis cannot be used to account in particular for the BIOLOGICAL part of that "too good to be true". Smolinian selection may account for the fact that our universe has the necessary constants, dimensionality and laws to last for last for a long time (not fizzle out or crunch immediately its initiating bang), long enough to spawn daughter universes (and INCIDENTALLY long enough to breed life). But Smolinian selection cannot account for the fact that our universe is specifically congenial to life, or to intelligent life, or to us. My negative conclusion would break down only if life itself is in the habit of engineering the spawning of daughter universes. As far as I am aware, this hasn't been suggested, but it is, I suppose, a theoretical possibility that daughter universes are generated as a consequence of the fooling around of highly evolved physicists.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins, "Science Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder" https://www.edge.org/conversation/science-delusion-and-the-appetite-for-wonder, John Brockman, Edge.org, 1.2.97.

Life, Law, Intelligence, Idea

“Whistled up to London, upon a Tom Fool's errand.”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Book I, Ch. 16.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

“I did not vote upon the Factory question. The fact is the Government are being whipped with a rod of their own pickling. They used the ten hours’ cry, and all other cries, to get into power, and now they find themselves unable to lay the devil they raised for the destruction of the Whigs. The trickery of the Government was kept up till the time of Ashley's motion, in the confident expectation that he would be defeated by the Whigs and Free Traders…The Whigs very basely turned round upon their former opinions to spite the Tories. The only good result is that no Government or party will in future like to use the factory question for a cry…One other good effect may be that men like Graham and Peel will see the necessity of taking anchor upon some sound principles, as a refuge from the Socialist doctrines of the fools behind them.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to F. W. Cobden (23 March 1844) on the Factory Act 1844, quoted in John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905), p. 302.
1840s

Men, Confidence, Question, Time

“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Falsehood, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience

Truth, Lie, Sense

“Value Time: Our time on the earth is limited. There are so many things to do in this limited life span. So you have to manage your day and time wisely. Don’t be a fool to waste your precious time and life.”

Thich Nhat Tu (1969) Vietnamese philosopher

Engaged Buddhism, Social Change and World Peace (2014)

Life, Time

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.”

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

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Lines 8–9

Star, Tree, Light

“In all companies there are more fools than wise men, and the greater part always gets the better of the wiser.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

En toutes compagnies il y a plus de folz que de sages, et la plus grande partie surmonte tousjours la meilleure. Chapter 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=wfRKAQAAIAAJ&q=%22En+toutes+compagnies+il+y+a+plus+de+folz+que+de+sages+et+la+plus+grande+partie+surmonte+tousjours+la+meilleure%22&pg=PA285#v=onepage. Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Pantagruel (1532)

Men, Parting

“I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous.
I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school.
Of the America that made America famous…and
Of the people who just might understand
That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land,
We have a choice to make each man
who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
A prophet or just a crazy God damn
Dreamer of a fool.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

What Made America Famous?
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

God, People, School, Dreams

“2454. If any one giveth thee excessive Praises more than can handsomely belong to thee, thou art to think of him, that he taketh thee for vain and credulous, and easy to be deceived, and effectually a Fool.”

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

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Art, Thinking

“In blaming others, fools their folly show,
And most attempt to speak when least they know.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Il volgare ignorante ognun riprenda,
E parli più di quel che meno intenda.
Canto XXVIII, stanza 1 (tr. J. Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“Nor could the foole abstaine,
But drunke as often.”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Homer's Odysses (1614), Book IX, line 496

“Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Vain-Glory
Essays (1625)

Men

“Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."”

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

The Naulahka http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/Naulahka/index.html, ch. 5 (1892). Other works

Health, Smile, Fight

“It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving men…. He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded…. When at last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still amazed…. John… sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?… If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard, aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility…. When at last a soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off home — the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his mother…. It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, 'will you step this way please sir?'… The manager was sorry, very very sorry — but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of course… before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square… and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat and said, 'John Jones you're a natural-born fool.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire....
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XIII: Of the Coming of John

Life, Men, Money, World

“No doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools, for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Vol. 1, Ch. 3, Section 2: Pride
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“The way you’re perceived is regal
On the televisions by the people
You don’t fool us: we know you’re evil
And your face should be illegal”

Dhani Harrison (1978) English musician

Choose what you’re watching
Lyrics, You Are Here (2008)

People, Way, Evil

“… as you are not to be a boy all your life- and I trust would not be reckoned a fool- use your every endeavour to be a good man”

Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780) British composer, writer and grocer

(from vol 2, letter 13: 29 Nov 1778, to Mr S___ in Madras).

Life, Boy

“I knew it long ago: I'm a compulsive teacher, but I can't teach. The godawful state of today's education system isn't what's stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot "suffer fools gladly." The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can't handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.”

Larry Niven book N-Space

Foreword: Playgrounds for the mind
N-Space (1989)

Books, Education, Suffering, Teachers

“A Parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the twenty-seven millions, mostly fools.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Latter Day Pamphlets, No. 6.
1850s

“Fools follow rules when the set commands you.”

Zack de la Rocha (1970) American musician, poet rapper and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of rap metal band Rage Again…

Bullet in the Head.
Song lyrics, Rage Against the Machine (1992)

“On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, … all the faults and follies peculiar to it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Life, Wisdom, World, Personality

““Out of doors on a moonless night?” Mette sneered. “Only fools, footpads, and astrologers stray where there is no light.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 57)

Light, Night

“Those who think the information brought out at a criminal trial is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are fools. Prosecuting or defending a case is nothing more than getting to those people who will talk for your side, who will say what you want said.”

F. Lee Bailey (1933) American lawyer

New York Times, 20 September 1970.

People, Truth, Thinking

“Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damn fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the …”

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer

Life, "Author Rex Stout vs. the F.B.I."

Books

“It takes brains to make money, but any dam fool can inherit. P. S.: I never inherited any money.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 10.

Money

“Ultimately, the Indian public is not fool. They can spot the difference between what is said for effect and what is done in reality. Whether it is politicians or actors or social activists, they know for sure whom to trust or not.”

Rahul Bose (1967) Indian actor

OneIndia, Thursday, 2009, " 'Indian public is not fool' - Rahul Bose http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/features/2009/bose-the-foundation-081009.html" by Joginder Tuteja

Reality

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Peter Plymley's Letters (1808), Letter IV

Law

“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?' and the only echo is 'damned fool!… the Devil drives'.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

Burton to Lord Houghton as quoted in The Devil Drives: A life of Sir Richard Burton (1984) by Fawn Brodie.

“He was an arrogant, pigheaded doctrinaire fool.”

Alan Gibbs (1939) businessman, art collector

About Robert Muldoon, From the documentary Robert Muldoon: The Grim Face of Power, 1994

“Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Notebook E, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945)
Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)

Life, Youth, World

“We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when, beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashings of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a damned fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with that same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke the thought aloud, 'Why don't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrades, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile.”

Ernest Thayer (1863–1940) American poet

Spoken at Thayer's tenth anniversary reunion at Harvard, 1895, as quoted in "American Heritage," (December 1968).

Life, Age, Smile, Parent

“I think the kicks in Wing Chun are enough. It´s much easier to use your hands than to use your feet. Your hand is able to reach your opponent long before your foot. Why take the long way to attack (circle), when there is a much more direct method of attack? If you are using your hands, then your opponent can´t see a kick coming if you have to use it. When you teach Kung Fu, you can fool a lot of people, but not yourself. You can make like a movie and do many complicated movements and kicks, but you only fool yourself as to whether that would work in a real situation of life and death.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung: "Your hand is able to reach your opponent long before your foot." Practical Fighting Concepts Source: Interview with Wong Shun Leung, by: Erle Montaigue http://www.vingtsunupdate.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=77

Life, Death, People, Way

“Van and Schenck put their songs over so skillfully that it isn’t until their act is all done that you realize what extremely indifferent songs they are. Now, when John Steel is singing, on the other hand, you are never fooled for a moment. p.153”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 3: 1920

Singing, Indifference

“Who are a little wise, the best fools be.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

The Triple Fool, stanza 2

““People like your wife are dangerous.”
“Why?” Hamilton asked.
“They don’t belong to any group. They fool around with everything. As soon as we turn our back—”
“So you destroy them. You turn them over to the lunatic patriots.”
“The lunatic patriots,” McFeyffe said, “we can understand. But not your wife. She signs Party peace petitions and she reads the Chicago Tribune. People like her—they’re more of a menace to Party discipline than any other bunch. The cult of individualism. The idealist with his own law, his own ethics. Refusing to accept authority. It undermines society. It topples the whole structure. Nothing lasting can be built on it. People like your wife just won’t take orders.””

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 16 (p. 231)

People, Peace, Law, Understanding

“Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

The Sun Rising, stanza 1

Lovers, Business, Sun, Season

“I can tell you that only a fool destroys useful things merely because he doesn’t like them.”

Avram Davidson book Masters of the Maze

Source: Masters of the Maze (1965), Chapter 8 (p. 108)

“Children ensnared me the moment I connected fatherhood with loss, but I am not sure I would have noticed that if I hadn't been immersed in this research. Encountering so much strange love, I fell into its bewitching patterns and saw how splendor can illuminate even the most abject vulnerabilities. I had witnessed and learned the terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility, recognized how it conquers everything else. Sometimes, I had thought the heroic parents in this book were fools, enslaving themselves to a life's journey with their alien children, trying to breed identity out of misery. I was startled to learn that my research had built me a plank, and that I was ready to join them on their ship.”

Andrew Solomon (1963) American journalist

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 702.

Love, Life, Children, Books

“[I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book I, Ch. 9
Essais (1595), Book I

Understanding, Sense, Strong, Memory

“He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.”

James Huneker (1857–1921) American music critic

The Pathos of Distance (1915), p. 257

Wisdom

“I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand.”

Thomas Friedman (1953) American journalist and author

The Oprah Winfrey Show, January 23, 2006
"The next … months" in Iraq

People, Thinking, Chance

“When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Nature

“Mr. T has the greatest hair in the world. You can't deny it, it's been proven by science, fool!”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

World of Warcraft Advert (2007)

World, Science

“98. A Fool and his Money are soon parted.”

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

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

Money, Parting

“And today many artists like myself refuse to be involved in some ideas. In painting – for me – no fooling-the-eye, no window-hole-in-the wall, no illusions, no representations, no associations, no distortions, no paint-caricaturing, no dream pictures of dripping, no delirium trimmings, no sadism or slashing, no therapy, no kicking-the-effigy, no clowning, no acrobatics, no heroics, no self-pity, no guilt.... no abstraction of everything, no nonsense, no involvements, no confusing painting with everything that is no painting.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

1940 - 1955
Source: Contemporary American Painting, University of Illinois, Urbana 1952, p. 226-227

Dreams, Idea, Painting

“How the learned fool would wonder
Were he now to see his blunder,
When he put his reason under
The control of worldly Pride.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Part III Poems, "A Vision Of a Wrangler, of a University, of Pedantry, and of Philosophy. " (November 10, 1852)
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)

Learning

“There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."”

William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) Dean of St Pauls

More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931), p. 200

“A fool puts a burr under the saddle before she rides.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Lini
(15 October 1993)

“I’m not trying to frighten you, but only a fool makes predictions based on ignorance; I am not that sort of fool.”

Robert A. Heinlein book I Will Fear No Evil

Source: I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 12, p. 177

“The passion, observe, which is able to reflect, gives even to ninnies, fools, and imbeciles a species of intelligence, especially in youth.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

La passion qui, remarquez-le, porte son esprit avec elle, peut donner aux niais, aux sots, aux imbéciles une sorte d’intelligence, surtout pendant la jeunesse.
Source: A Bachelor's Establishment (1842), Ch. IX.

Youth, Intelligence, Passion