The Idiot (1868–9)
“To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools.”
Rire des gens d'esprit, c'est le privilège des sots.
56
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation
“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.”
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
Bacchæ l. 480
Variant translation: To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish.
Variant translation: He were a fool, methinks, who would utter wisdom to a fool. (translated by Edward Philip Coleridge)
Variant translation: Wise words being brought to blinded eyes will seem as things of nought. ( translated by Gilbert Murray http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8418/8418-h/8418-h.htm)
Source: The Bacchae
“It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.”
Source: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
“Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.”
Sonnet 1,Concluding couplet from Loving in truth,and fain in verse my love to show
Compare: "Look, then, into thine heart and write", Henry W. Longfellow, Voices of the Night, Prelude.
Variant: Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.
Source: Astrophel and Stella (1591)
Context: .... But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."
Femina è cosa garrula e fallace:
Vuole e disvuole; è folle uom che sen fida.
Canto XIX, stanza 84 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
“A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools.”
The Crown of Wild Olive, lecture III: War, section 114 (1866).
“The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense — he is always satisfied with himself.”
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
“Oft has good nature been the fool's defence,
And honest meaning gilded want of sense.”
To a Lady (1736)
