“No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
“The folly of the clever is always more than that of the dull.”
Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch April 380
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Gore Vidal163
American writer 1925–2012Related quotes
“The obstinancy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinancy of folly and inanity.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author
Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 4.
“A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
On Publishing
Writers at Work (1977)
Context: A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
“For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?”
Quid enim foedius auaritia, quid immanius libidine, quid contemptius timiditate, quid abiectius tarditate et stultitia dici potest?
Marcus Tullius Cicero book De Legibus
Book I, section 51; (Translation by C.D. Yonge) http://books.google.com/books?id=AdAIAAAAQAAJ&q=%22For+what+is+there+more+hideous+than+avarice+more+brutal+than+lust+more+contemptible+than+cowardice+more+base+than+stupidity+and%22&pg=PA420#v=onepage <br class="br">De Legibus (On the Laws)
“More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker
“Folly is often more cruel in the consequence, than malice can be in the intent.”
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections
“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Prejudices, Second Series (1920) Ch. 1
1920s
“He is not mad. He is only more clever than you. It is not the same.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
Volume 4, Ch. 10
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)
“For present joys are more to flesh and blood
Than a dull prospect of a distant good.”
John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther
Pt. III, lines 364–365.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)