“I suffer fools gladly because I am one of them.”

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Harry Secombe photo
Harry Secombe 4
British entertainer 1921–2001

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“Suffer fools gladly; they may be right.”

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Platitudes in the Making http://books.google.com/books?id=r8trG_FywFAC&q=%22Suffer+fools+gladly+they+may+be+right%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage (1911)

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“M.... used to warn me that I had one grave disability: I couldn't suffer fools—and their predominance—gladly. He was right and I realized that in society a fool had one great advantage: he was among his peers.”

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Reflections
Original: (fr) M... me disait que j'avais un grand malheur: c'était de ne pas me faire à la toute-puissance des sots. Il avait raison, et j'ai vu qu'en entrant dans le monde, un sot avait de grands avantages, celui de se trouver parmi ses pairs. C'est comme frère Lourdis dans le temple de la Sottise.
Original: (fr) Maximes et Pensées, #197

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“Several people have told me that my inability to suffer fools gladly is one of my main weaknesses.”

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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.
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“I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.”

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recollection http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F2113&viewtype=text&pageseq=7 by E. Ray Lankester, from his essay "Charles Robert Darwin" in C.D. Warner, editor, Library of the World's Best Literature: Ancient and Modern (R.S. Peale & J.A. Hill, New York, 1896) volume 2, pages 4835-4393, at page 4391
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

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“If there is one who’s not free, then I am not free. If there is one who suffers, then I suffer.”

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Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (6:38 p.m. August 23, 2009)
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“I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools. I like a twist of meaning. I endure.”

Variant: I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.
Source: We Were Liars

“You and I know that there is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.”

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The Enduring American Press (October 1964) edited by The Hartford Courant

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