foolishness Quotes

“Determination is as common among men who are dull and foolish as it is among those who are brilliant intellects. So, no, determination cannot be what we’re looking for.”

“It’s better to be sworn to an honest fool than to a lying scholar.”

“That’s the spirit, one part brave, three parts fool.”

“He’s acting as foolish as a kitten . . . but then, everyone’s entitled to a little foolishness once in a while.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. . . . Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

“Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth that would buy that fool Thneed!”

It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool.

“I see a woman may be made a fool, If she had not a spirit to resist.”

You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won’t be wiser?

“Ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves.”

“Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything - all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it. Is there time?

“To a criminal, honesty is foolish.”

Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain.

Govinda said: “Still, oh Siddhartha, you love a bit to mock people, as it seems to me. I believe in you and know that you haven’t followed a teacher. But haven’t you found something by yourself, though you’ve found no teachings, you still found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you to live? If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart.” Quoth Siddhartha: “I’ve had thoughts, yes, and insight, again and again. Sometimes, for an hour or for an entire day, I have felt knowledge in me, as one would feel life in one’s heart. There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.”

“I fooled myself. I had to. Everybody has to. If the good had been twice as good and the bad only half as bad, I still ought to have seen it, all through as I did in the beginning, because I am, as you say, sensitive. But I didn’t want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent. I wanted my home and family, my job, my career, a place in the community.”

“I know you now, old enemies of mine! Falsehood! . . . Have at you! Ha! and Compromise! Prejudice, Treachery!. . . Surrender, I? Parley? No, never! You too, Folly,—you? I know that you will lay me low at last; Let be! Yet I fall fighting, fighting still!”

“Only fools want to be great.”

“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.”

“Only priests and fools are fearless and I’ve never been on the best of terms with God.”

″ Man is without any doubt the most interesting fool there is. Also the most eccentric. He hasn’t a single written law, in his Bible or out of it, which has any but just one purpose and intention -- to limit or defeat the law of God.”

″‘That was the night, in the kitchen, that I realized I was no better than who I was....And I no longer felt angry at Waverly. I felt tired and foolish, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind and discover there was no one there.‘”

“The foolish children of men do miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in their confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow.”

“The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.”

“I went on Board in an evil Hour, the 1st of Sept. 1659, being the same Day eight Year that I went from my Father and Mother at Hull, in order to act the Rebel to their Authority, and the Fool to my own interest.”

“The only thing all the intended disorientation had accomplished was to familiarize her with the building. Idiots.”

“In a month no man had come up or down that silent creek.”

“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”

“You can fool no more money out of me at this throw. If you will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.”

“I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”

“The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it. And those that are fools, let them use their talents.”

“I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise.”

“Love doesn’t conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.”

“You’re brilliant,“he says.“But you’re a fool to stay with someone like me.” I close my eyes at the touch of his hand.“Then we are both fools.”

″ Nobody says, ‘You’re dying.’ You have to fool them. They have to fool themselves. ”

“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

“The good and the pleasant approach man; the wise examines both and discriminates between them; the wise prefers the good to the pleasant, but the foolish man chooses the pleasant through love of bodily pleasure.”

“Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?”

“In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack–but in the matter of old wines he was sincere.”

“Perhaps you may think me foolish, but until I am sure there is nothing in my present fancy, I am more determined than ever to go on with my observations.”

“The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.”

“Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.”

“He had a weak point–this Fortunato...”

“The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.”

″‘You jest,’ he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. ‘But let us proceed to the Amontillado.‘”

“You can be a fool for five minutes if you ask a question. However, you are a fool for a lifetime if you hesitate to ask a question.”

“What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself!”

“You will always run away with her. You will always lose her. You will always be a fool. You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear. You have already done all of this and will do it again.”

“I am a lover of love and I am a lover of words, and the two together spin visions of airy castles, but also may pierce the heart of hope. And so I remind you that I am a fool, a poet, and what matters is reality, not lovely words. Words are full of promise, yet empty of matter.”

“Even cows know when they should go home and leave behind the fields, but an unwise man does not know the measure of his own appetite.”

“What a fool you are, Basta! I’m not talking about children’s magic. I mean the magic of the written word. Nothing is more powerful for good or evil, I do assure you.”

“Don’t you talk to that cat. That cat is a bad one, That Cat in the Hat. He plays lots of bad tricks. Don’t you let him come near. You know what he did the last time he was here. ”

“You’d be a fool to trust the former queen of the Court of Teeth.”

“Anyway, when he was in about Form One, some stupid fool started a rumor that Simon had AIDS, and that’s why he was sick. Next thing you know, some parents wouldn’t let their kids play with Simon, in case they caught something from him.”

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.”

“Wise Men learn by other’s harms; Fools by their own.”

“The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my house gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been!”

“the most marvelous cloth...invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unforgivably stupid”

“If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious.”

″ ‘Child!’ said the cuckoo, suddenly changing his tone, ‘you are very foolish. Is a kind thought or action ever wasted? Can your eyes see what such good seeds grow into? They have wings, Griselda- kindness have wings and roots, remember that- wings never droop and roots never die. What do you think I came and sat outside your window for?’ ”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

“Once again let me remind you that the Rock itself is extremely dangerous and you are therefore forbidden to engage in any tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration, even on the lower slopes.”

“Reckless, foolish indulgence.”

″‘...you’ll look foolish.’ ‘How nice! So pleasant it will be to look for once like what you look always.‘”

″...I’m not fool enough to give up certainty for an uncertainty.”