95 quotes about Fools and Foolishness



Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.
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In days gone by, we were afraid of dying in dishonor or a state of sin. Nowadays, we are afraid of dying fools. Now the fact is that there is no Extreme Unction to absolve us of foolishness. We endure it here on earth as subjective eternity.
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Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.
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A fool and his money get a lot of publicity.
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There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won t.
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Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit.
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The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.
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Every fool finds a greater one to admire them.
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A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
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However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.
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Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.
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A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.
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Foolproof systems do not take into account the ingenuity of fools.
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There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
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Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.
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He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.
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How many fools does it take to make up a public?
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When he said we were trying to make a fool of him, I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it.
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It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.
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A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy.
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A fool despises good counsel, but a wise man takes it to heart.
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The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.
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In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.
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Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom.
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The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.
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In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.
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Fools are without number.
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Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.
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There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.
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Most fools think they are only ignorant.
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The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs of his neighbor.
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Spinoza Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
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Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?
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A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
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There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise, so consult him. 2. The man who knows, but doesn't know that he knows; help him not forget what he knows. 3. The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not; teach him. 4. Finally, there is the man who knows not but pretends that he knows; he is a fool, so avoid him.
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Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
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It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
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The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
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No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.
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While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple.
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No one but a fool is always right.
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When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
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Why fools are endowed by nature with voices so much louder than sensible people possess is a mystery. It is a fact emphasized throughout history.
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Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.
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The biggest fool in the world is he who merely does his work supremely well, without attending to appearance.
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He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
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You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better -- the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read.
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A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
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Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
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Colleges don't make fools, they only develop them.
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Who loves not women, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long.
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It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.
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A fellow who is always declaring that he's no fool, usually has his suspicions.
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A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.
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Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
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Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
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A fool and his money are soon parted.
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The fool is always beginning to live.
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Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.
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He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
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If a man fools me once, shame on him. If he fools me twice, shame on me.
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Fools build houses, and wise men buy them.
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He is a fool that kisseth the maid when he may kiss the mistress.
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The fool has to do at last what the wise did at first.
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Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
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He who knows he who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him; He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child, teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep, wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.
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What a fool does in the end, the wise do in the beginning.
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A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom.
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In life, each of us must sometimes play the fool.
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They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
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The great God endows His children variously. To some he gives intellect -- and they move the earth. To some he allots heart -- and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence -- and these, who never grow up, but remain always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one color instead of many.
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The fool needs company, the wise solitude.
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Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.
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If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
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The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.
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A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.
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The haste of a fool is the slowest thing in the world.
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Lord, what fools these mortals be.
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The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. [Measure For Measure]
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The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
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He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
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Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
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On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.
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