Quotes about fool
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“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Jim Elliot (1927–1956) Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.”

Akhenaten 18th dynasty pharaoh

Wisdom, Fools

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Wisdom, Happiness, Fools, Thinking

“We can’t make the same mistake again,” Aïda said, “of fooling ourselves. Believing in shit that isn’t real.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Cleft” (p. 551)
Seveneves (2015), Part Two

Fools

“When I was a little boy, (when I was just a boy)
And the devil would call my name (when I was just a boy)
I'd say "Now who do,
Who do you think you're fooling?"”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Loves Me Like a Rock
Song lyrics, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Fools, Boy, Thinking

“Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Fools

“Well, I remember!
I remember, don't worry
How could I ever forget?
It's the first time, the last time we ever met
But, I know the reason why you keep your silence up,
No you don't fool me.
The hurt doesn't show
But the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you and me.”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

"In the Air Tonight"
Face Value (1981)

Pain, Fools, Silence, Time

“First of all, this prince is an idiot, and, secondly, he is a fool--knows nothing of the world, and has no place in it.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot, Part IV., Chapter V.
General, The Idiot (1868–9)

World, Fools

“This is the world and this is life. The more you reply to negative words, the more they fool you, and the less you speak, the more they stupid you.”

Ayuel Monykuch (1997) South Sudanese Entrepreneur

Life, Stupidity, World, Fools

“People can be fooled into thinking of mathematics as logical, formal, symbolic reasoning. But this is far from reality...computers are far better at formal computation and formal reasoning, but humans are far better mathematicians.”

William Thurston (1946–2012) mathematician

Foreword to Teichmüller Theory

People, Fools, Mathematics, Thinking

“You can't rap, my friend
You're white and you're from Fulham
Please put down the mic
there's no way you can fool them
Don't be stupid, you won't get that far
Turn your back on hip-hop, bruv, and go and play guitar”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"You Can't Rap" (song) ("You Can't rap" - Official video on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCd1Xq0Au4 (+ Lyrics version of "You Can't Rap" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_3L-9dv_c Studio albums, What We Made (2007)

Stupidity, Fools, Way

“We are all experts and sometimes encounter limits in our fields, including those we call fools. Even the doctor can only heal the sick, but not raise the dead.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Fools, Dead

“Whatever the director asks me to do, I will do and make him happy. I’m a fool.”

Brigitte Lin (1954) Taiwanese actress

As quoted in "Brigitte Lin: ‘In All My Movies, There Is Something of Myself’" in Film Doo (21 May 2018) https://www.fareastfilm.com/eng/archive/catalogue/2018/intervista-con-brigitte-lin/?IDLYT=31711

Happiness, Fools

“Any woman who tries to influence a man in subtle ways is a fool. Every woman should influence her man, but she should do it as a full and open partner—and not in some secret fashion.”

Martha Beall Mitchell (1918–1976) Wife of American politician

[Martha Mitchell, Saturday Evening Post, Fall 1971, 243, 2, 50-53]

Secret, Fools, Way, Fashion

“You are a fool, sir priest. Ignorance may excuse you. It will certainly kill you.”

Judith Tarr (1955) American fantasy writer, historian

Source: Ars Magica (1989), Chapter 2 (p. 18)

Fools

“Stupid fools look just as good as military geniuses until the fighting starts.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 4 (p. 37)

Stupidity, Fools, Fight

“I keep trying to resist the thought, but the thought keeps pushing its way back in: The Western world has sunk into madness. There are no solutions to anything. The talk of our politicians is the babbling of fools, but we keep electing them anyway. We are collectively insane.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Source: Succouring the Poor https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/succouring-poor-john-derbyshire/, National Review, February 6, 2012.

World, Fools, Way, Madness

“Always remember... Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.”

Ziad K Abdelnour (1960) Lebanese-born American investment banker, financier, activist and author

Source: Economic Warfare Quotes

Fools

“Don't try to fool me and act like you can do or say anything 'because we are a democracy...Do you misunderstand something? Today, I am the one makes the rules. Previous governments couldn't do that. But today, I made the rules [sic], and all of you have to follow them.”

Prayut Chan-o-cha (1954) Thai military officer, junta chief, and politician

Source: Anti-Junta Protest in Khon Kaen, Despite Prayuth's Warnings http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1433764390 (8 June 2015)

Fools, Democracy

“The wise man's rule is worth much more to him than the fool's revenue.”

Mateo Alemán book Guzmán de Alfarache

Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

Fools

“When the pious fools come up against the godless pagans who own Judea, the result is what might be called diplomatic incidents.”

Arthur C. Clarke A Time Odyssey

Source: 2000s and posthumous publications, A Time Odyssey, Firstborn (2007), Chapter 26, “The Stone Man” (p. 172)

Fools

“Those in power (even if it's only for a little while) known nothing about literature, all they care about is power. And I'll play the fool for my readers, if I feel like it, but never for the powerful.”

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Chilean author

Between Parentheses. Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998–2003. ed. Ignacio Echevarría, trans. Natasha Wimmer (New York: New Directions, 2011 [2004]). 358.
Variant: Alternative translation: "Those who have power—even for a short time—know nothing about literature; they are solely interested in power. I can be a clown to my readers, if I damn well please, but never to the powerful." Interview with Mónica Maristain for Playboy (Mexican edition), "The Last Interview" (2003), 102, in: The Last Interview. trans. Sybil Perez (New York: Mellville House, 2009). 93-123

Fools, Feeling, Literature

“[T]he risk of these sports, and the supposed manliness of facing that risk, is generally put forth as one of their merits. Now I may be very blind and mean-spirited, but the manly sport of foxhunting seems to me not to be manly at all, but to be at once cowardly and fool hardy. It is cowardly as regards the cruelty practised on a victim which cannot defend himself by tormentors who, as far as the victim is concerned, are perfectly safe. It is foolhardy as risking men's lives for no adequate cause. It is manly, it is something much better than manly, when a man sacrifices or risks his life in a good cause. But I can see nothing manly, nothing in any way praiseworthy, in a man risking his life in a bad cause or in no cause at all. When a fox-hunter is suddenly cut off in the midst of his cruelties, I can see nothing in his end at all resembling the end of the martyr who dies for his religion or of the hero who dies for his country. I believe I am unfashionable in thinking so, but I cannot help it.”

Edward Augustus Freeman (1823–1892) English historian (1823-1892)

Source: 'The Morality of Field Sports', The Fortnightly Review (October 1869), quoted in E. A. Freeman, The Morality of Field Sports (1874), p. 24

Life, Men, Religion, Fools

“M.... used to warn me that I had one grave disability: I couldn't suffer fools—and their predominance—gladly. He was right and I realized that in society a fool had one great advantage: he was among his peers.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections
Original: (fr) M... me disait que j'avais un grand malheur: c'était de ne pas me faire à la toute-puissance des sots. Il avait raison, et j'ai vu qu'en entrant dans le monde, un sot avait de grands avantages, celui de se trouver parmi ses pairs. C'est comme frère Lourdis dans le temple de la Sottise.
Original: (fr) Maximes et Pensées, #197

Fools, Suffering

“Where to begin?
The pain I am in,
hard to know when to stop.
Out of the blue
a dream came true,
only to see it drop.
I'm no genius where love's concerned,
more fool me to pretend.
Whatever it takes, while my heart aches
I'll never love again.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"I'll Never Love Again" (song) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "I'll Never Love Again" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IIlAUIwQdc (song on YouTube) Song lyrics

Love, Pain, Dreams, Fools

“There is no liar like the one who lies to himself. He has a fool indeed for an audience.”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

Source: Short fiction, Dragonfield and Other Stories (1985), The Bull & the Crowth (p. 122)

Fools

“Sickness, jail, poverty, getting drunk—I had to experience all that myself. Sinning makes the world go round. You can't be so stuck up, so inhuman that you want to be pure, your soul wrapped up in a plastic bag, all the time. You have to be God and the devil, both of them. Being a good medicine man means being right in the midst of the turmoil, not shielding yourself from it. It means experiencing life in all its phases. It means not being afraid of cutting up and playing the fool now and then. That's sacred too.”

John Fire Lame Deer (1903–1976) American activist

Source: Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (1972), p. 76

Life, God, World, Fools

“Silly people, and there are many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand bloodletting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War (1948–1953)
Source: The Grand Alliance: The Second World War, Volume 3, (1950) p. 540

War, People, Fools, Democracy

“O you miserable fool, what I shit is better than anything you can do.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Original: (de) Ach du erbärmlicher Schuft, was ich scheisse ist besser, als was du je gedacht. Source: Written in the margin of Gottfried Weber's negative review of Wellington's Victory in Beethoven's copy of Cäcilia (August 1825) https://books.google.com/books?id=KBuLcEJpX4sC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77

Fools

“It’s no big job to fool yourself.”

Jack Cady book The Night We Buried Road Dog

Source: The Night We Buried Road Dog (1993), p. 494

Fools