Quotes about fools
page 2

Source: The Winter's Tale

“Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Life, Dreams, Soul, Fight

“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

“It’s better to be sworn to an honest fool than to a lying scholar”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

Lying

“Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

“Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

Men

“you can’t fool all the people all the time,” but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: The Lessons of History

People, Time, Country

“Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Housing

“… Any fool can love somebody who's perfect, somebody who does everything right. But that doesn't stretch your soul. Your soul only gets stretched when you can still love somebody after they've hurt you.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Hot Shot

Love, Soul, Hurt, Perfection

“Your life might be easier if you were. A fool for love is happier than a Dog with a heart that's all leather.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Love, Life, Dogs, Heart

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you”

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

Truth

“For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Variant: Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.
Source: Twelfth Night

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Way

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Religion

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, Books, World

“I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

God

“Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue!”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

World, Change

“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)

Learning

“Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?… Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

World, Way

“The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: Religion: A Dialogue and Other Essays

Personality

“Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Life, Fate

“Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Death, People

“And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.”

Nora Ephron book Heartburn

Source: Heartburn

Dreams, Reality

“How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Money

“Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

Love

“Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward.”

Piers Anthony Castle Roogna

Source: Castle Roogna

Fear, Feeling, Courage, Courageous

“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

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.

Cute, For Team

“Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Hitchhiker's Trilogy

Thinking

“A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Happiness

“I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.”

William Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew

Source: The Taming of the Shrew

“You can say any fool thing to a dog and the dog will just give you this look that says, 'My GOSH, you're RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dogs

“Whoever said that childhood is the happiest time of your life is a liar, or a fool.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Midnight Palace

Source: The Midnight Palace

Life, Time, Childhood

“If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.”

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

Love, Hate, Fear

“Oh, I am fortune's fool!”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.”

Tamora Pierce book Melting Stones

Source: Melting Stones

Learning

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

People

“It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.”

Joel Coen (1954) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Source: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Heart

“H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 26
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“The secret is not to dream," she whispered. "The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I'm going. You cannot fool me any more. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Secret, Dreams

“Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool. ]”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

Fear, Courage, Courageous

“When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Queen

Source: The Other Queen

Love, Death, Marriage, Thinking

“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Cry

“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“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

Feeling

“Showing off is the fool's idea of glory.”

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

Idea

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.”

C.G. Jung book Mysterium Coniunctionis

Mysterium Coniunctionis http://books.google.com/books?id=avckAQAAMAAJ&q=%22If+one+does+not+understand+a+person+one+tends+to+regard+him+as+a+fool%22&pg=PA125#v=onepage, from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (1966)

Understanding, Personality

“A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Sleep

“Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Youth, Lovers

“Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Fight

“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”

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

Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

People, Thinking

“When everything seems to be set to show me off as intelligent, the fool I always keep hidden takes over all that I say.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: We Are Many

Intelligence

“The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young people are fools.”

Agatha Christie Murder at the Vicarage

Source: Murder at the Vicarage

People, Thinking

“This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Night

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”

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

Deep, Attitude

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

"Goodbye school" in Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)

Soul, Freedom, Personality

“Clown: Good Madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good Fool, for my brother's death.
Clown:I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.
Olivia:I know his soul is in heaven, Fool.
Clown: The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Source: Twelfth Night

Death, Soul, Hell, Thinking

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

People, Appearance

“I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)

Hope

“A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

Hate, Pleasure

“All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"Solidarity song" [Solidaritätslied] (1931), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 186
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Hope, Help

“Simpletons talk of the past, wise men of the present, and fools of the future.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men, Past, Future

“What kind of fool am I?
I never fell in love.”

Lesley Bricusse (1931) English composer, lyricist and playwright

Song What kind of fool am I?

Love

“When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[, ] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor in The Blackman, April, 1937.

Men, God, War, People

“Prabhupada: Yes. That is Tulasi dasa’s remark. So in many passages of his poetry he has not done very justice to woman. And another poetry, he writes, dhol gunar sudra nari. Dhol gunar sudra nari ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. (?) Dhol gunar pasu sudra nari, ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Dhol, dhol means drum, mrdanga. Gunar, gunar means… What is called English? A fool, fool. Illiterate fool, what is one word?
Brahmananda: Buffoon?
Prabhupada: Maybe buffoon. Buffoon is sometimes troublesome. But gunar means he doesn’t understand very nicely.
Brahmananda: Dullard.
Prabhupada: Dull, dull. Dhol gunar, dhol means drum and gunar means dull. Sudra, and the laborer class. Three. Dhol, gunar, sudra, and pasu, household animals, just like cows, dogs.
Brahmananda: Pet.
Prabhupada: Pet, like that. Dhol gunar sudra pasu and nari. Nari means woman. (laughs) Just see. He has classified the nari amongst these class, dhol, gunar, sudra, pasu, nari. Ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Sasan ke adhikari means all these are subjected for punishment. And what about the guest?
Govinda dasi: Oh, the guest? It’s coming.
Prabhupada: So sasan ke adhikari means they should be punished. (laughs) Punished means, just like dhol, when the, I mean to say, sound is not very hard, dag-dag, if you beat it on the border, then it comes to be nice tune. Similarly, pasu, animals, if you request, “My dear dog, please do not go there.” Hut! (laughter) “No, my dear dog.” Hut! This is the way.(?) Similarly, woman. If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. So in India still, in villages, whenever there is some quarrel between husband wife, the husband beats and she is tamed. (laughs) In civilized society, “Oh, you have done this?” Immediately some criminal case. But in uncivilized society they don’t care for court or civilized way of…”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Conversation, New York, April 12, 1969 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/conversations/1969/apr/new_york/april/12/1969?d=1 <br class="br">Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Violence and Dictatorship

Justice, Dogs, Way, Understanding

“1953. Learn the art of Silence; the wise Man that holds his Tongue, says more than the Fool who speaks.”

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

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Art, Silence, Learning

“It must be borne in mind that everything the propagandist does or says is for effect—most commonly the effect on fools. The public wants not truth but a show?”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 144

Truth

“I've listened to preachers,
I've listened to fools
I've watched all the dropouts
Who make their own rules
We're pushed and conditioned to rule and control
The media sells it and you live the role”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Crazy Train, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley.
Song lyrics, Blizzard of Ozz (1980)

“I was unable to devote myself to the learning of this algebra and the continued concentration upon it, because of obstacles in the vagaries of time which hindered me; for we have been deprived of all the people of knowledge save for a group, small in number, with many troubles, whose concern in life is to snatch the opportunity, when time is asleep, to devote themselves meanwhile to the investigation and perfection of a science; for the majority of people who imitate philosophers confuse the true with the false, and they do nothing but deceive and pretend knowledge, and they do not use what they know of the sciences except for base and material purposes; and if they see a certain person seeking for the right and preferring the truth, doing his best to refute the false and untrue and leaving aside hypocrisy and deceit, they make a fool of him and mock him.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070).

Life, People, Truth, Knowledge

“To begin with, things [after Independence in 1980] went well because [Robert] Mugabe was no fool. He realised [that] it was important to maintain the economy and keep the country expanding. And in any case he was committed to do that by the Lancaster House Agreement which said that there could be no change in [the existing status] for at least seven years unless [he] could get 100% support [from] all the people. In no ways would he have been able to get the support of the white members of Parliament, and also the Matabeles. So we were satisfied that what we were doing was in keeping with the traditions and culture and what was expected of us, and Mugabe used to thank me for coming to see him, [giving] him the benefit of my advice and [telling] him what the white people were thinking. But he only did this for a while because he inherited the best economy in Africa. It was viable. And after two years he quickly changed his mind because he had a lot of money available. He had his [own] commanders in control because he had removed the white commanders who would have taken action against him if he had defied the Lancaster House Agreement before the seven-year [period]. He removed our commanders and put his commanders in so that he knew that he could defy this. And so he breached the Lancaster House Agreement.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Ian Smith - A Bit Of A Rebel, Ian Smith

Money, People, Way, Support

“I never imagined that France could be represented by such doddering old fools, not excepting that little twit Thiers…”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

Quote from Manet's letter to Félix Bracquemond (18 March 1871); as cited in Manet by Himself (1995) by Julliet Wilson-Bareau
1850 - 1875

Imagination

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men, Fate, Secret, World

“It will be a very hard thing to leave the country that God gave us. Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave these grounds…. There is something strong for us — that fool band of soldiers that cleared out our lodges and killed our women and children. This is hard on us. There at Sand Creek — White Antelope and many other chiefs lie there; our women and children lie there. Our lodges were destroyed there, and our horses were taken from us there, and I do not feel disposed to go right off to a new country and leave them.”

Little Raven (Arapaho leader) (1810–1889) Southern Arapaho chief

At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100

Women, God, Hate, Children

“They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me that these are a fiction from first to last. O Reason, thou (alone) speakest the truth. Then perish the fools who forged the (religious) traditions or interpreted them!”

Al-Maʿarri (973–1057) Medieval Arab philosopher

As quoted in "The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri", Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921) by R. A. Nicholson, Verse 129, p. 110

Truth, Books

“Don't liken me to that [SOB]. Anybody that lets his public policies be mixed up with religious prejudice is a plain [GD] fool.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Huey Long on Adolph Hitler and fascism.(Williams p. 761P)

“I can say with truth that I have never, even in times of greatest preoccupation with carnal, worldly and egotistic pursuits, seriously doubted that our existence here is related in some mysterious way to a more comprehensive and lasting existence elsewhere; that somehow or other we belong to a larger scene than our earthly life provides, and to a wider reach of time than our earthly allotment of three score years and ten…It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital. There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongly held conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr. Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)

Life, Truth, Way, History

“A man who does not fool himself seldom cares much about fooling others. But the man who claims to have seen a ghost wants everybody else to believe in ghosts.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Ventures in Common Sense (1919), p87.

“I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Jailbird

Source: Jailbird (1979), p. 14

Happiness, Peace, Way, Peaceful

“Circus, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Women, Men, Children, Horse

“We have electrocuted your God. Don't be a fool.”

Eugene O'Neill Dynamo

Act 2, Scene 1
Dynamo (1929)

God

“I am certainly interested in a tribunal in which, for having used my reason, I was deemed little less than a heretic. Who knows but men will reduce me from the profession of a philosopher to that of historian of the Inquisition! But they behave to me in order that I may become the ignoramus and the fool of Italy…”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Source: Letter to Fr. Vincenzo Renieri (c. 1633), p. 244

Men

“We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case.”

Sheldon Kopp (1929–1999) American psychotherapist

Source: Even a stone can be a teacher (1985), p. 85

Learning

“If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,
And they are fools who roam.
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.”

Nathaniel Cotton (1707–1788) British writer

The Fireside, stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Happiness, World, Home, Joy

“Being pleased with what they give you is proper of slaves. Asking for more is proper of children. Conquering more is proper of fools.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 133
[X]: text missing in the manuscript.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Contentar-se com o que lhe dão é próprio dos escravos. Pedir masi é próprio das crianças. Conquistar mais é próprio dos loucos [porque toda a conquista é [X]]

Children

“Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise — when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter.”

Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American author

To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)

Chance

“Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Le silence est l'esprit des sots<br>Et l'une des vertus du sage. <br class="br">Bernard de Bonnard, "Le Silence," http://books.google.com/books?id=9gAvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR14&dq=%22Et+l%27une+des+vertus+du+sage%22+Bonnard&ei=iyzvR-bFOIa4zASV0PyoBQ#PPA244,M1 L'Almanach des Muses (1776) <br class="br">Misattributed

Silence

“The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in American never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purposes. It is not the black child's language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience. A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand, essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a limbo in which he will no longer be black, and in which he knows that he can never become white. Black people have lost too many black children that way.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html in "The New York Times (29 July 1979)

Children, People, Truth, Education

“The distinction between being a fool and developing yourself is not as clear a distinction as people might like to imagine. They're practicing what they need to practice in order to cope with the world.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

People, World, Imagination

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) British economist

"Small is Beautiful", an essay, in The Radical Humanist, Vol. 37, No. 5 (August 1973), p. 22 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106019678082;view=1up;seq=230

Intelligence, Courage

“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Citas, Candide (1759)

Reading, Parting

“Talk had faded with the daylight. The silence that set in was oppressive. The encroaching dark, the groundmist collecting into small, curdled pools…for the first time it seemed perfectly real and totally unnatural, and he wanted either Jan or his mother, some woman, and he wondered what in the hell he was doing and how he ever could have gotten involved. He could not even kid himself that everything had not been up front, because it had been. And he hadn't even done it alone. There were currently ninety-five other fools in this parade.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

Hell, Silence, Time

“O Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia—what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool like Malachi Constant point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, ‘Somebody up there likes me.’ And no longer can a tyrant say, ‘God wants this or that to happen, and anybody who doesn’t help this or that to happen is against God.’ O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 10 “An Age of Miracles” (p. 215; epigram)

God, Truth, Soul, Time

“Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.”

Douglas Bader (1910–1982) British World War II flying ace

Brickhill 1954, p. 44. Note: (also quoted as "...for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.") In Reach for the Sky, this quote is attributed to Harry Day, the Royal Flying Corps First World War fighter ace.

Men, Wise

“Did Stanton say I was a damned fool? Then I dare say I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means.”

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

As quoted in Lincoln; An Account of his Personal Life, Especially of its Springs of Action as Revealed and Deepened by the Ordeal of War (1922) by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson.
1860s

“Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element are made for wise men to contemplate, and for fools to pass by without consideration.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Men

“I absolutely reject the premise there is anything wrong with Black people “talking white”. It is as if to vast swathes of the privileged white left and impoverished Black community diction, education and a mastery of thought is somehow “white”… comrade, how wrong you are to say that after decades in academia I’m acting white. I’m being black. I’m being black everyday a cop pulls my car over for a “routine stop”, I’m being black each time I look in the mirror, and I’m damn well being black when I school young fools out of the myth our race is too ill-evolved to be both black and accomplished.”

Elaine Brown (1943) American activist

People, Education, School, Cars

Quotes about fools page 2

Quotes about fools
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