
“To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom.”
"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 41 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 299.
“To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom.”
"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 41 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
In a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 January 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77
1860s
Implosion Magazine, No. 51, p. 29 (Callum Coats: Water Wizard)
Implosion Magazine
Pour juger un homme, au moins faut-il être dans le secret de sa pensée, de ses malheurs, de ses émotions; ne vouloir connaître de sa vie que les événements matériels, c'est faire de la chronologie, l'histoire des sots!
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart
Source: Figures of Earth (1921), Ch. I : How Manuel Left the Mire
Context: He had a quiet way with the girls, and with the men a way of solemn, blinking simplicity which caused the more hasty in judgment to consider him a fool. Then, too, young Manuel was very often detected smiling sleepily over nothing, and his gravest care in life appeared to be that figure which Manuel had made out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton.
This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones overgrown with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood, which commemorated what had been done there.
“The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
Source: Ringworld (1970), p. 96