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fool quotes

  • Napoleon thinks that I am a fool, but he who laughs last laughs longest.

    -Alexander I
      Letter to his sister, 8 Oct.

  •    There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.12,'Of Boldness'.

  •   'Some people', Miss R. said,'run to conceits or wisdom but I hold to the hard, brown, nutlike word. I might point out that there is enough aesthetic excitement here to satisfy anyone but a damned fool.'

    - Donald Barthelme
      Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural  Acts,'The Indian Uprising'.

  •    What things have we seen, Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtil flame, As if that every one from whence they came, Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a fool, the rest Of his dull life.

    - Francis Beaumont
      Letter to Ben Jonson, verses prefacing  Jonson's Volpone.

  • Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel 26:21.

  • The fool hath said in his heart,There is no God.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms14:1.

  • As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 26:11.

  • A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 29:11.

  • For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool: this also is vanity.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 7:6.

  • But I say unto you,That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say,Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 5:22.

  • I care not whether a man isgood or evil; all that I care Is whether he is a wise man or a fool.Go! put off Holiness, And put on intellect, or my thunderous hammer shall drive thee, To wrath which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice.

    -William Blake
    c.1804^1807  Jerusalem, plate 91.

  • For though when he was here, he was Fool in every man's mouth, yet now he isgone he is highly commended of all.

    -John Bunyan
      The Pilgrim's Progress, pt.2.

  • But here our authors make a doubt Whether he were more wise or stout. Some hold the one and some the other; But howsoe'er they make a pother, The difference was so small his brain Outweighed his rage but half a grain; Which made some take him for a tool That knaves do work with, called a fool.

    - Samuel Butler
      Hudibras, pt.1, canto1, l.29^36.

  • When all philosophies shall fail, This word alone shall fit; That a sage feels too small for life, And a fool too large for it.

    - G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
    Ballad of the White Horse, bk.8.

  • Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

    - Charles Caleb Colton
      Lacon, vol.1, no.322.

  • To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task.

    -William Congreve
      Sir Sampson to  Angelica. Love for Love, act 5, sc.2.

  • To please a fool is some degree of folly.

    -William Congreve
      The Way of the World, act 2, sc.6.

  • Take away that fool's baublethe Mace.

    - Oliver Cromwell
      On dismissing the Rump Parliament, 20  Apr.

  • Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call countryants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

    -John Donne
    c.1595^1605  'The Sun Rising', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

  • Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

    -John Dryden
    Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.968.

  • How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! Tosparethegrossness ofthenames, and to dothe thing yet moreseverely, isto drawa full face, and tomake the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing.

    -John Dryden
      A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, 'The  Art of Satire'.

  • But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's fifty; then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.

    -William Harrison Faulkner
    Quoted in Webb and Wigfall Green William Faulkner of Oxford (1965).

  • One fool at least in every married couple.

    - Henry Fielding
    Amelia, bk.9, ch.4.

  • Busy opinion is an idle fool.

    -John Ford
      ' Tis Pity She's a Whore, act 5, sc.3.

  • Wehavethepower to doanydamnfool thing we wantto do, and we seem to do it every10 minutes.

    -J(ames) William Fulbright
      In Time, 4 Feb.

  • Any fool may writea most valuablebook bychance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.

    -Thomas Gray
      Letter to Horace Walpole, 25 Feb.

  • The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted and when to be obeyed.

    - Nathaniel Hawthorne
      The Blithedale Romance, ch.2.

  • Crystal sincerity hath found no shelter but in a fool's cap.

    -Gerard Manley Hopkins
      'Floris in Italy'. Collected in H House and G Storey (eds) The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1959), p.42.

  • Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet blues!

    - (James Mercer) Langston Hughes
      'The Weary Blues'.

  • Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I canonlycomparetoa stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
    Quoted in Hawker Instructions toYoung Sportsmen (1859). The attribution is doubtful, and Swift has also been credited with the remark.

  • : Come, indeed, la, you are such a fool, still! : No, but half a one,Win; you are thet'other half: man and wife make one fool,Win.

    - Ben Jonson
    WIN LITTLEWITLITTLEWIT1614  Bartholomew Fair, act1, sc.1.

  • Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man; but ittakes a veryclever womantomanagea fool.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Plain Tales from the Hills,'Three andan Extra'.

  •    And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      The Naulahka, ch.5.

  • My imaginationmakesmehumanandmakesmea fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.

    - Ursula ne  e Kroeber Le Guin
      'Winged Creatures On My Mind', in Harper's,  Aug.

  • You can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.

    - Abraham Lincoln
      Speech, Clinton, 8 Sep.

  •    Wer nicht liebt Wein,Weib und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. Who loves not woman, wine and song Remains a fool his whole life long.

    - Martin Luther
    Attributed. This was inscribed in the Luther room at  Wartburg, but is probably apocryphal.

  • Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it Macaulay down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till theyare fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.

    -1st Baron
      'Milton', in the Edinburgh Review,  Aug.

  • The man that gets drunk is little else than a fool, And is in the habit, no doubt, of advocating for Home Rule; But the best Home Rule for him, as far as I can understand, Is the abolition of strong drink from the land.

    -William McGonagall
    Last Poetic Gems (published1968),'The Demon Drink', stanza 9.

  • Mult est fole, ki hume creit. She is a fool, who trusts a man.

    -Jose   Carlos Maria t egui
    c.1170  Eliduc, l.1084.

  • It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

    -John Stuart Mill
      Utilitarianism, ch.2.

  • O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies,O worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! Light the prime work of God to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd, Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, 586 Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

    -John Milton
    Samson  Agonistes, l.67^79.

  • Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.

    - Margaret Mitchell
       Ashley Wilkes. Gone  with  the Wind, ch.31.

  • Un sot savant est sot plus qu'un sot ignorant. A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool. 590

    -Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
      Les femmes savantes, act 4, sc.3.

  • Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work: I merely inflict myself on the public.

    - Robert Morley
    Attributed.

  • One disadvantage of being a hog is that at any moment some blundering fool may try to make a silk purse out of your wife's ear.

    -Michael) pseudonym Beachcomber
    By the Way.

  • Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But hating, my boy, is an art.

    - (Frederic) Ogden Nash
      Happy Days,'Plea for Less Malice Toward None'.

  • The learn'd is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more.

    - Alexander Pope
      An Essay on Man, epistle 2, l.263^4.

  • Search then the Ruling Passion:There, alone, The wild are constant and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest.

    - Alexander Pope
      Epistles to Several Persons,'To Lord Cobham', l.174^8.

  • You think this cruel? take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool. Let peals of laughter,Codrus! round thee break, Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack. Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled, Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.

    - Alexander Pope
      'An Epistle to DrArbuthnot', l.83^8.

  • Un fol enseigne bien un sage. A fool has a lot to teach a wise man.

    - Fran c° ois Rabelais
      Tiers Livre, pt.37.

  • Whena mangoesinforpolitics over here, hehasnotime to labour, and any man that labours has no time to fool with politics.Over there, politics is an obligation; over here it's a business.

    -Will Rogers
    On Britain electing a Labour government. TheAutobiography of Will Rogers (published1949), ch.14.

  • There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell†divine as the vale of Tempe; you might have seen the gods there morning and eveningApollo and the sweet Muses of the Light† You enterprised a railroad†you blasted its rocks away† And, now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.

    -John Ruskin
    ^8  Praeterita, vol.3, pt.4,'Joanna's Cave', note.

  • You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued† Fool: it is you who are pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      JohnTanner to Octavius Robinson. Man and Superman, act 2.

  •    But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows† Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,'said my muse to me; 'look in thy heart, and write.'

    - Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway Shute
    Astrophel and Stella, sonnet1.

  • Oh heav'nly fool, thy most kiss-worthy face Anger invests with such a lovely grace That Anger's self I needs must kiss again.

    - Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway Shute
    Astrophel and Stella, sonnet 73.

  • It is better to be a fool than to be dead.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
    Virginibus Puerisque,'Crabbed Age andYouth'.

  • For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
    Virginibus Puerisque,'Crabbed Age andYouth'.

  • Lord,Iwonder what fool it wasthat first invented kissing!

    -Jonathan Swift
      Polite Conversation, dialogue 2.

  • These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man, and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn'fool if they weren't.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Collected Poems, author's note.

  • Youcanfooltoomanyofthepeopletoomuchofthetime. See Lincoln 510:35.

    -James Grover Thurber
      'The OwlWhoWas God', in the NewYorker, 29 Apr.

  • I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.

    - E(lwyn) B(rooks) White
      Charlotte. Charlotte'sWeb, ch.10.

  • But there comes a time in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among human beings or nota fool among fools or a fool alone.

    -Thornton Niven Wilder
      The Matchmaker, act 4.

  • He's a fool that marries; but he's a greater that does not marrya fool.

    -William Wycherley
      The CountryWife, act1, sc.1.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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