Motivational Quotes

Fools and foolishness

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

- Proverb, African

Fools and foolishness Motivational Quotes

Best Quotes about Fools and foolishness

1.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Eliot, George

2.

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

Korda, Michael

3.

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

Sutro, Alfred

4.

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

Freehill, Maurice

5.

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

Smith, Wes

6.

Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.

Russell, Bertrand

7.

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

Proverb, Spanish

8.

Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom.

Ellis, Havelock

9.

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

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Lincoln, Abraham

14.

Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.

Fielding, Henry

15.

Fools build houses, and wise men buy them.

Proverb, English

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

19.

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

Proverb, Jewish

20.

Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.

Bernstein, Al

21.

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

22.

When he said we were trying to make a fool of him, I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it.

Chase, Ilka

23.

Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.

Boileau, Nicholas

24.

The fool is always beginning to live.

Proverb

25.

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

Collins, John Churton

26.

There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won t.

Billings, Josh

27.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

28.

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

Shakespeare, William

29.

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

30.

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

Shadwell, Thomas

31.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

32.

Colleges don't make fools, they only develop them.

Lorimer, Geroge

33.

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

Steele, Sir Richard

34.

Every fool finds a greater one to admire them.

Bioleau

35.

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

Balzac, Honore De

36.

A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.

Seneca

37.

A fool and his money get a lot of publicity.

Bernstein, Al

38.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

Boileau, Nicholas

39.

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

Brown, Gene

40.

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

Proverb, Italian

41.

He who knows he who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him; He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child, teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep, wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.

Proverb, Persian

42.

A fellow who is always declaring that he's no fool, usually has his suspicions.

Mizner, Wilson

43.

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

Luther, Martin

44.

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.

Disraeli, Isaac

45.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Shaw, George Bernard

46.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

47.

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

Billings, Josh

48.

It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.

Macmillan, Harold

49.

Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit.

Billings, Josh

50.

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

Confucius