quotations about fools
There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
WILLIAM GOLDING
Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1983
Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
The difference between a puppy and a fool is this--the one is born blind and continues so for nine days only, while the other remains with his eyes shut all his life.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
There are two indiscretions that generally distinguish fools: a readiness to report whatever they hear, and a practice of communicating with secrecy what is commonly understood.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
The man who is foolish at the termination of his life shall always remain a fool.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
The angels must tremble when a fool is in the right.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Man is so perfectable and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook F", Aphorisms
When a fool dies there is much shedding of tears in the land whither he is bound.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
The learned Fool writes his Nonsense in better Language than the unlearned; but still 'tis Nonsense.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
ELIZABETH GASKELL
Wives and Daughters
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Fashion! -- a word which knaves and fools may use,
Their knavery and folly to excuse.
CHARLES CHURCHILL
The Rosciad
Children and fools speak true.
JOHN LYLY
Endymion
Tho' marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools.
WILLIAM CONGREVE
The Double Dealer
My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Harper's magazine, Aug. 1990
As a fish out of his native element, so is the fool in the society of the wise.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
W.C. FIELDS
Because other people are fools, must you be so too?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Too many men are afraid of being fools.
HENRY FORD
"In Bondage to a Reputation," Ford Ideals
The difference between a wise and foolish man is this--the former sees much, thinks much, and speaks little; but the latter speaks more than he either sees or thinks.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs