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Fool Quotes

“What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty.”

Men May Shows Eye Desire Force Teach Wall Fool Weather Multitudes Interiors Casualties Learning More

Author:William Shakespeare

“You can lie to yourself and fool yourself and rationalize that the choice you're making is what is right and what is true and what leads to liberation, when it's actually only the fulfillment of desire.”

Lying Desire Choices Buddhism Fool Liberation Fulfillment Dharma Rationalize

Author:Frederick Lenz

“Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and ambitions. The Praise of Folly, therefore sketches the possibility of a position for the critic of the scene of political rivalry, a position not simply impartial between the rivals but also, by self-definition, off the stage of rivalry altogether.”

Wells Persons Self Political Desire Stage Possibility Position Fool Scene Ambition Claims Madness Praise Critics Definitions Folly Criticize License Rivals Rivalry Reprisal Erasmus

Author:J. M. Coetzee

“Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.”

Desire Time Wise Fool Ambition Graves Dread Cradle Counselor

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think

“Technological consciousness takes itself dead seriously; it has no sense of humor. The fool can play no role in it, for there is no other realm that is can see beyond itself to which the fool can point. Consciousness in the throes of desire cannot tolerate laughter any more than criticism of laughter can be tolerated in a moment of sexual lust.”

Play Moments Desire Consciousness Roles Fool Laughter Criticism Lust Realms Sense Of Humor Tolerate Technological

Book:Moral Philosophy and the Modern World

Source: Moral Philosophy and the Modern World

“Some have sought to avoid suffering by avoiding desire. Thus they have only small desires and small sufferings, poor fools.”

Desire Suffering Poor Fool Avoiding

Book:Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic

Source: Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic

“I am pleased as punch no longer to believe in a god who declares reason a sin, who will not choose many noble and great and wise things but has chosen the base things of the world, the foolish things, the weak things and the things which are not. A god who can choose his companions in eternity and prefers Jerry Falwell and Tammy Bakker over Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. I am no longer a fool for Christ's sake. And I have no more desire to be a sheep than to be a fool. It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.”

“Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools.”

Ifs Men May Desire Crime Fool Accounts Faults Endeavor Fraud Despise Dread Cunning Knaves Insensible Duplicity

Author:Norm MacDonald

“If any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou hast to spare; if he press thee further, he is not thy friend at all, for friendship rather chooseth harm to itself than offereth it. If thou be bound for a stranger, thou art a fool; if for a merchant, thou puttest thy estate to learn to swim.”

Ifs Giving Art Desire Fool Presses Bounds Stranger Harm Thee Swim Spares Estates Merchants

Book:The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt: Miscellaneous works

Source: The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt: Miscellaneous works

“If you want to be a yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood.”

Ifs Want Self Desire Realizing Nice Fool Circumstances Anxiety Comfortable Rivers Crosses Caught Woods Where You Are Yogi Crocodiles Nice Life

Book:The Powers of The Mind

Source: The Powers of The Mind

“Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.”

Giving Desire Literature Courage Fool Damn

Book:Seize the Night: A Novel

Source: Seize the Night: A Novel

“...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

Men Giving Trying May Said Moments Might Remember Desire Forget Fields Fool Victory Battle Despair Illusion Breaths Philosopher Conquer Folly Now And Then Forget It Fury Mausoleum

Author:William Faulkner

“The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.”

Men World Needs Desire Wish Fool Affair Honour Toil Trickery Deference

Book:The Sorrows of Young Werther

Source: The Sorrows of Young Werther