Best fool & knaves Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool; since the most absurd doctrines are not without such evidence as martyrdom can produce. A martyr, therefore, by the mere act of suffering, can prove nothing but his own faith.”

Mean Suffering Dies Produce Fool Prove Evidence Mere Doctrine Absurd Martyr Martyrdom Knaves

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

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

“A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.”

Thinking Persons Fool Knaves Knavery

Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

“Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is--more knave than fool.”

Shows Fool Dove Serpent Knaves Knavery

Author:Christopher Marlowe

“Fashion--a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse.”

May Use Fashion Fool Excuse Folly Knaves Knavery

Author:Charles Churchill

“Knaves starve not in the land of fools.”

Land Fool Knaves Knavery

Book:The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes

Source: The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes

“By fools, knaves fatten; by bigots, priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull.”

Wells Fool Priests Bigots Knaves Gulls Knavery

Author:Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

“How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! Tosparethegrossness ofthenames, and to dothe thing yet moreseverely, isto drawa full face, and tomake the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing.”

Men Hard Faces Easy Term Fool Depth Noses Villain Cheeks Standing Out Rogues Knaves Blockheads

Author:John Dryden

“True loyalty consists not in bowing the knee to earthly greatness, or in heroic deeds to "gild the kingly knave, or garnish out the fool," but in noble, generous acts of honest purpose, where truth, honor, and virtue, and a nation's welfare, are dearer than life.”

Purpose Nations Virtue Honest Greatness Fool Honor Deeds Noble Loyalty Knees Welfare Generous Heroic Knaves Heroic Deeds

Author:James Ellis

“He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.”

Mean Dies Atheism Fool Prove Positive Atheism Martyr Knaves

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.”

Men Made Failing Dangerous Fool Ridiculous Clever Good Man Credulity Knaves Gullibility Clever Man

Book:A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum

Source: A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum

“Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!”

Self Spirit Social Christianity Fool Cells One Time Alas Bigots Knaves

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.”

Deals Dangerous Fool Knaves Incorrigible

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

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

“I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.”

Wells Fool Knaves

Book:The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt

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.”

Men Play Might Fool Advantage Fortune Knaves

Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

“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.”

Men Want Needs May Use Known Honesty Fine Fool Speech Instruments Disguise Good Sense Talk To Me Ornaments Parables Candor Knaves

Book:The Mourning Bride. A Tragedy

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.”

Reason Spirit Sin Talking Fool Busy Loud Smooth Zeal Rogues Knaves Quaint Mutiny

Author:Thomas Otway

“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.”

“Better be a foole then a knave. [Better be a fool than a knave.]”

Fool Knaves

Author:George Herbert

“Earth bears no balsams for mistakes; Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will: but thou, O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool.”

Men Earth Prayer Mistake Lord Fool Bears Tools Crowns Merciful Knaves Scourge

Author:Edward Rowland Sill

“Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave.”

Money Fool Knaves

Author:Patricia Wentworth

“Conspiracies, since they cannot be engaged in without the fellowship of others, are for that reason most perilous; for as most men are either fools or knaves, we run excessive risk in making such folk our companions.”

Men Reason Running Risk Fool Folks Engaged Companion Conspiracy Fellowship Knaves

Author:Francesco Guicciardini

“Power, when invested in the hands of knaves or fools, generally is the source of tyranny.”

Hands Power Source Fool Tyranny Knaves

Book:A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, youngest daughter of Colley Cibber ... Written by herself. With a portrait

Source: A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, youngest daughter of Colley Cibber ... Written by herself. With a portrait

“No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.”

Men Sometimes Enough Play Fool Weakness Wit Cunning Knaves

Author:Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet

“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

“We have not the slightest idea that women are made of such light material that the breath of any fool or knave may blow them on the rocks of ruin.”

May Made Ideas Light Women Rocks Materials Fool Breaths Blow Ruins Sexism Knaves

Author:Jane Swisshelm

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

Mean Certain Numbers Mankind Fool Degrees Mass Respect Majority Respectable Respectability Knaves

Book:Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters

“Money does all things,--for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.”

Men Giving Doe Ends Money Honest Fool All Things Philosopher Chapters Honest Man Knaves

Book:Fables of Æsop and other eminent mythologists: with morals and reflections

Source: Fables of Æsop and other eminent mythologists: with morals and reflections

“The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcileable foes to truth.”

World Made Truth Fool Foe Knaves

Author:George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

“Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.”

Men Lying Wise Honest Honesty Fool Mark Titles Nobility Honest Man Knaves

Book:The Poems of Edward Young ...

Source: The Poems of Edward Young ...

“History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”

Lying Culture History Events Fool Accounts Soldier Propaganda Historian Rulers World History Unimportant Knaves Historical Events Great History

Author:Ambrose Bierce

“Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.”

Fool Knaves Knavery

Author:Voltaire

“Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.”

Source: Personal Poems, Complete Volume IV., the Works of Whittier: Personal Poems

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star.”

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