quotations about fools
Fools may our scorn, not envy raise,
For envy is a kind of praise.
JOHN GAY
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Fables
Contend not in wisdom with a fool, for thy sense maketh much of his conceit;
And some errors never would have thriven, had it not been for learned refutation.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
He must be a thorough fool who can learn nothing from his own folly.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
The man who is foolish at the termination of his life shall always remain a fool.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
WILLIAM GOLDING
Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1983
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Bobok
Old fools are greater fools than young ones.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
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
The angels must tremble when a fool is in the right.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Ten gods cannot change the opinion of one fool, especially if another fool agrees with him.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
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
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
The learned Fool writes his Nonsense in better Language than the unlearned; but still 'tis Nonsense.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
When dunces call us fools, without proving us to be so, our best retort is to prove them to be fools, without condescending to call them so.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
O! I am Fortune's fool.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
Children and fools speak true.
JOHN LYLY
Endymion
Fools, when their roof-tree falls, think it doomsday.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
When a fool dies there is much shedding of tears in the land whither he is bound.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Too many men are afraid of being fools.
HENRY FORD
"In Bondage to a Reputation," Ford Ideals
Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.
AESOP
Aesop's Fables