“The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!”
Rudyard Kipling book Plain Tales from the Hills
Three and—an Extra.
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
"Working Class Hero"
Lyrics, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
“The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!”
Rudyard Kipling book Plain Tales from the Hills
Three and—an Extra.
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
La passion fait souvent un fou du plus habile homme, et rend souvent les plus sots habiles.
Variant translation: Passion often makes a fool of the cleverest man and often makes the most foolish men clever.
Maxim 6.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David
[Proverbs, 1:7, KJV] (KJV)
“Devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever.”
Nancy Cartwright book My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy
Describing Bart Simpson.
Source: My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy (2000), pp. 35–40
“We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised”
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice
. <br class="br">Memoirs (trans. Machen 1894), book 1, Preface http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/preface2.html (We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised [...]) <br class="br">Referenced <br class="br">Variant: We avenge intelligence when we deceive a fool, and the victory is worth the trouble.
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
A Foreword to Krazy (1946)
Context: A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist-mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse.
“I am what you might call a controversial figure: people either hate me or despise me.”
Brother Theodore (1906–2001) German-American monologuist and comedian