Folly Quotes

To swallow gudgeons ere they're catch'd And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd.

Nicholas Murray Butler

To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.

Cicero

The folly of one man is the fortune of another.

Sir Francis Bacon

He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks.

La Rochefoucauld

Answer a fool according to his folly.

Bible

His foe was folly and his weapon wit.

Anthony Hope

The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.

Erasmus

The greatest prison in the universe is an ignorant mind.

Matshona Dhliwayo

How can one absolve intelligent men for engaging in arrogant and demented folly?

C.R. Strahan

Innocence is the most intelligent admission of stupidity.

Raheel Farooq

A fool who cursed the sun was surprised to see it still shining.

Marty Rubin

Real comedy is not when you laugh at an idiot, it's when the idiot laughs at you.

Raheel Farooq

We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.

Rex Stout

Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.

Jane Austen

Everyone has known this condition of mind, though perhaps not all in the same degree; everyone will recognise it as the condition in which he has done brave things with apparent serenity; and everyone reading will say, Fortunate for Ben Hur if the folly which now catches him is but a friendly harlequin with whistle and pointed cap, and not some Violence with a pointed sword pitiless.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

The world makes, and hates, bachelors.

Justin K. McFarlane Beau

The problems you have are there for me to help you solve, not to have with you.

Justin K. McFarlane Beau

One endured with humble dignity the consequences of youthful folly.

Glen Cook

Progressive thought is blind when it suggests that there can be no anti-white racism or an anti-semitism among the formerly oppressed or the young people in the projects because they themselves have suffered from this evil. They are the victims; they are exempt from the prejudices that affect the majority of the population. But the reverse is true: racism is multiplying at exponential rates among groups and communities, taboos are collapsing, and everything is explained in terms of physical characteristics, identity, purity, and difference. and this is a racism that is all the more certain that it is right because it is regarded as a legitimate reaction on the part of the persecuted. now we see the obsession with the pedigree and the old distinctions derived from slavery being revived, and prejudices accumulating in the name of racism. This is the end of the concept of humanity as union in diversity and the triumph of human species incompatible with each other.

Pascal Bruckner

Progressive. n. One who is unable to distinguish between novelty and enlightenment.

Ron Brackin

That, in my opinion, was the most diabolical aspect of those old-time big brains: They would tell their owners, in effect, 'Here is a crazy thing we could actually do, probably, but we would never do it, of course. It's just fun to think about.' And then, as though in trances, the people would really do it--have slaves fight each other to death in the Colosseum, or burn people alive in the public square for holding opinions which were locally unpopular, or build factories whose only purpose was to kill people in industrial quantities, or to blow up whole cities, and on and on.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Just as smiles often follow tears, the sun rose full and bright on the morning..

Georgina Grey

Worrying about things you cannot control is folly. Focus only on those few things you have any control over, and your life becomes much simpler.

Jeffrey Fry

Pride and folly, they go together like two tightly grasping hands.

Patrick Rothfuss

It is certainly impossible to lose respect if you lose out of some stupid discussions.

Michael Bassey Johnson

...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.

James Lee Burke

As a matter of fact, when it comes to seeing, men display two tendencies: they see what they wish to see, what is useful to them, what is agreeable. The second is the tendency toward inhibition; they do not see what they do not wish to see, what is useless to them, or disagreeable.

Rémy de Gourmont

We are all very much alike in France in this respect; we still remain knights, knights of love and fortune, since God has been abolished whose bodyguard we really were. But nobody can ever get woman out of our hearts; there she is, and there she will remain, and we love her, and shall continue to love her, and go on committing all kinds of follies on her account as long as there is a France on the map of Europe; and even if France were to be wiped off the map, there would always be Frenchmen left.

Guy de Maupassant

A rat in its stealing behavior may manage to steal gold jewelry and to make a nest with it but that does not in anyway qualify the rat to be a millionaire though it's gold pieces be worth that much.

Newton Gatambia

Big mouths and small brains make the strangest noises.

Orrin Woodward

Each dark conjecture came and for a moment settled like a vulture on Bond's shoulder and croaked into his ear that he had been a blind fool.

Ian Fleming

4.10 ANGERAnger makes a dull man witty,But keeps him poor in eternity,A man shrinks when he is angry,And grows in tranquil serenity.[90]t- 4When anger flow in the body,You lose your temper – your folly,When distempered – a tragedy,You lose reason – a calamity.[91]t- 4

Munindra Misra

It is true. Indeed, that is why I dared not speak. I have yearned to be again at the side of my beloved Arianllyn, and my thoughts are with her now. But had I chosen to return, I would ever wonder whether my choice was made through wisdom or following the wishes of my own heart. I see this is as it must be, and the destiny laid upon me. I am content to die here.

Lloyd Alexander

The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it. This pronouncement seems to state the obvious and yet it is false. Men grow old, the end grows near, each moment becomes more and more valuable and there is no time to waste on recollection. It's important to understand the mathematical paradox in nostalgia, that it is most powerful in early youth , when the volume of life that has passed is quite small.

Milan Kundera

Can you blame me, my dear, for looking on this attachment as a romantic folly inspired by that cursed Shakespeare who will poke his nose where he is not wanted?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

Isaac Asimov

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?

Barbara W. Tuchman

To forsake wisdom is to seek folly,to seek folly is to seek evil,to seek evil is to be in the arms of the devil,and to be in the arms of the devil is be in the arms of death.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Wisdom is the greatest speaker in history;nature, second.Folly is the worst speaker in history;fools, second.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Where there is wisdom there is life,and where there is evil there is death.Folly is your enemy and so are fools;wisdom is your friend and so are the wise.

Matshona Dhliwayo

It's easier to conceal wisdom than folly.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Folly plots a fool's death from the moment they become friends. Wisdom bestows blessings upon a wise man from the moment they wed.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Folly and evil are twins;the devil is their father,and wisdom is their enemy.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Folly, like its consequences, is dreadful.Wisdom, like its rewards, is great.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Wisdom is simple but profound.Folly, even when complex, is stupid.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Arm yourself with wisdom,arm yourself with knowledge;folly is a fierce lion roaming the streets.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Wisdom’s slaves are better than folly’s kings.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Bitter wisdom is better than sweet folly.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Paying the high cost of education is better than paying the high price of ignorance.

Matshona Dhliwayo

The lowest wisdom of the wise is greater than the highest wisdom of fools.

Matshona Dhliwayo

Fall from ignorance, and you will rise to reason.

Matshona Dhliwayo

A few hours spent reading a book is better than a lifetime of ignorance.

Matshona Dhliwayo

It is better to be accepted by the bright few than by the dull masses.

Matshona Dhliwayo

The folly and wisdom of men starts when they stop thinking and start acting.

David Benedict Zumbo

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.

Gautama Buddha

For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the 'natives,' and so in every crisis he has got to do what the 'natives' expect of him... A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

George Orwell

It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.

Alain de Botton

I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!

Walter Scott

Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.

William Faulkner

Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all passions.

Barbara W. Tuchman

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