Motivational Quotes

Fools and foolishness

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.

- Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Fools and foolishness Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Fools and foolishness

A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom.

Proverb, Welsh

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.

Disraeli, Isaac

Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more, and float upward in our heedlessness, singing Gratia Dei sum quod sum.

Updike, John

The fool within himself is the object of pity, until he is flattered.

Steele, Sir Richard

What a fool does in the end, the wise do in the beginning.

Proverb, Spanish

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.

Horace

A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy.

Collins, John Churton

However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.

Boileau, Nicholas

10.

The biggest fool in the world is he who merely does his work supremely well, without attending to appearance.

Korda, Michael

11.

A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.

Moliere

12.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

Frost, Robert

13.

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.

Erasmus, Desiderius

14.

Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.

Russell, Bertrand

15.

A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.

Seneca

16.

It is rude to silence a fool, and cruelty to let him go on.

17.

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.

Lewis, C. S.

18.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Goldsmith, Oliver

19.

The fool needs company, the wise solitude.

Ruckett

20.

Foolproof systems do not take into account the ingenuity of fools.

Brown, Gene

21.

Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.

Proverb, Jewish

22.

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.

Billings, Josh

23.

He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.

Cervantes, Miguel De

24.

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.

Franklin, Benjamin

25.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

Boileau, Nicholas

26.

Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.

Balzac, Honore De

27.

No one but a fool is always right.

Hare, David

28.

Spinoza Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

Franklin, Benjamin

29.

He is a fool that kisseth the maid when he may kiss the mistress.

Proverb, English

30.

Every fool finds a greater one to admire them.

Bioleau

31.

Who loves not women, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long.

Luther, Martin

32.

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.

Proverb, African

33.

The haste of a fool is the slowest thing in the world.

Shadwell, Thomas

34.

Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.

Boileau, Nicholas

35.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

36.

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?

Freehill, Maurice

37.

That's the penalty we have to pay for our acts of foolishness -- someone else always suffers for them.

Sutro, Alfred

38.

Fools build houses, and wise men buy them.

Proverb, English

39.

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.

Hertzler

40.

The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. [Measure For Measure]

Shakespeare, William

41.

A fool despises good counsel, but a wise man takes it to heart.

Confucius

42.

The fool has to do at last what the wise did at first.

Proverb, Italian

43.

Most fools think they are only ignorant.

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

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.

Gabirol, Ibn

45.

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.

Baudrillard, Jean

46.

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.

Erasmus, Desiderius

47.

Fools are without number.

Erasmus, Desiderius

48.

Seek but provision of bread and wine, fools to flatter, and clothing fine; and nothing of God shall ever be thine.

Smith, Wes

49.

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.

Rinehart, Mary Roberts

50.

No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.

Goldsmith, Oliver