Browse 4015 quotes about Fool.
“It needs brains to be a real fool.”
Source: The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more
“Enjoy the present hour, be mindful of the past; And neither fear nor wish the Approaches of the last. Learn of the skillful: He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master.”
Source: Poor Richard's Almanack
“A nod from a lord is a breakfast for a fool.”
“If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.”
Source: King Lear
“The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts--or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.”
Source: The works of Joseph Addison: including the whole contents of Bp. Hurd's edition, with letters and other pieces not found in any previous collection; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works
“I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.”
Source: The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt
“It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Even if misfortune is only good for bringing a fool to his senses, it would still be just to deem it good for something.”
“Imitators are a slavish herd and fools in my opinion.
[Fr., C'est un betail servile et sot a mon avis
Que les imitateurs.]”
“You talk to me in parables.
You may have known that I'm no wordy man,
Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves
Or fools that use them, when they want good sense;
But honesty
Needs no disguise nor ornament: be plain.”
Source: The Mourning Bride. A Tragedy
“Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
The busy, buzzing, talking harden'd knave;
The quaint smooth rogue that sins against his reason,
Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal,
And mutiny the dictates of his spirit.”
“Greatness, thou gaudy torment of out souls,
The wise man's fetter, and the rage of fools.”
“All places are filled with fools.
[Lat., Stultorum plenea sunt omnia.]”
“Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it. Second thoughts are best as the proverb says.
[Lat., Cujusvis hominis est errare; nullius, nisi insipientis, in errore perseverae. Posteriores enim cogitationes (ut aiunt) sapientiores solent esse.]”
“Ah, fool! faint heart fair lady ne'er could win.”
Source: The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser: In Six Volumes : with a Glossary Explaining the Old and Obscure Words
“Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest.
[Lat., Stulte, quid est somnus, gelidae nisi mortis imago?
Longa quiescendi tempora fata dabunt.]”
“Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
But for one end, one much-neglected use,
Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied;)
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light;
To make humanity the minister
Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
The generous luxury the gods enjoy.”
“How can we be such fools as to go on senselessly taking human life in this way? Why the women in every nation do not rise up and refuse to bring children into a world of this kind is beyond my understanding.”
“The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself.”
Source: Works
“Consider in fact, a body of six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous persons, set to consult about "business," with twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, assiduously listening to them, and checking and criticising them. Was there ever, since the world began, will there ever be till the world end, any "business" accomplished in these circumstances?”
Source: The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
“Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age.”
Source: Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books
“Honest men live on charity in their age; the almshouses are full of men who never stole a copper penny. Honest men are the fools and the saints.”
“One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'.”
Source: The Poems of Browning: 1847-1861
“If a man offend a harmless, pure, and innocent person, the evil falls back upon that fool, like light dust thrown up against the wind.”
Source: The Dhammapada
“Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.”
Source: Essays on Men and Manners
“Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.”
“Bets at first were fool-traps, where the wise like spiders lay in ambush for the flies.”
Source: The works of John Dryden now first collected ...
“Let no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away... a bigger fool than when he came to it.”
“The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one's self a fool.”
“Better be a foole then a knave.
[Better be a fool than a knave.]”
“Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
Force many a shining youth into the shade,
Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.”
Source: Poems ... With a sketch of his life and a vindication of his religious principles and character. Third edition, corrected and enlarged. [With a portrait.]
“Fashion, leader of a chatt'ring train,
Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign
Who shifts and changes all things but his shape,
And would degrade her vot'ry to an ape,
The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong,
Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue,
There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace,
Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace,
And when accomplish'd in her wayward school,
Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.”
Source: Poems; to which is prefixed a memoir of the author by J. M'Diarmid
“Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools and pageant of a day;
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Edited by the Rev. H. F. Cary, Etc
“I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;
While if our Elders break all reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon but Applause.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq., with His Last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements; as They Were Delivered to the Editor a Little Before His Death; Together with the Commentaries and Notes of Mr. Warburton
“He was the freeman whom the truth made free;
Who first of all, the bands of Satan broke;
Who broke the bands of sin, and for his soul,
In spite of fools consulted seriously.”
Source: The Course of Time, a Poem: With a Memoir of the Author, an Introductory Notice, a Copious Index, and an Analysis Prefixed to Each Book
“I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.”
Source: His Works
“Were I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?”
Source: His Works
“Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.”
Source: Essays and The Bee
“Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds; all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly to the rearward of the world far off
Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The paradise of fools.”
“How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female says, in the tone of one clinching an argument, 'Edgar says -- ' And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool.”
Source: The man in the brown suit
“You can fool people some of the time, but you can't fool them all of the time.”
Source: Aesop in the afternoon
“You cannot fool an audience.”
Source: My Lord, what a Morning: An Autobiography
“A rogue is a roundabout fool.”
Source: Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of them; and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools by those who, however prudent in their opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
“The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.”
Source: Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects
“Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.”
Source: Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects
“Wrinkle not thy face with too much laughter, lest thou become ridiculous; neither wanton thy heart with too much mirth, lest thou become vain: the suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.”
Source: Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles
“Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace.”
Source: Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles
“Hath fortune dealt thee ill cards? let wisdom make thee a good gamester. In a fair gale, every fool may sail, but wise behavior in a storm commends the wisdom of a pilot; to bear adversity with an equal mind is both the sign and glory of a brave spirit.”
“Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.”
Source: .) (1853).