“Moria and stultitia are both rendered nowadays as 'folly', but both have far stronger senses than folly has now. They imply derangement of mind, madness, mania. Such are the defects attributed to Christians by the worldly-wise. And vice-versa.”
Source: Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1998), p. 73
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Michael Andrew Screech3
1926–2018Related quotes
“To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.”
Virtus est vitium fugere et sapientia prima
stultitia caruisse.
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
“It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.”
William Congreve The Double Dealer
Epistle dedicatory
The Double Dealer (1694)
“It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
4 August 1796
1750s, Diaries (1750s-1790s)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
(14th January 1832) Christmas extracts
(28th April 1832) The Little Shroud See The Vow of the Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1832
“There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
Variant: for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Extract from the Orderly Book of the army under command of Washington, dated at Head Quarters, in the city of New York (3 August 1770); reported in American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, Volume 1 https://www.thefederalistpapers.org/founders/washington/george-washington-the-foolish-and-wicked-practice-of-profane-cursing-and-swearing (1829), p. 163 <br class="br">1770s
