Blockheads Quotes - Page 2

• The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.

  Alexander Pope

  Education, Wisdom, Stupid People

  'An Essay on Criticism' (1711) l. 612

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• None but blockheads copy each other.

  William Blake

  Art, Philosophy, History

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• A coxcomb is the blockhead's man of merit.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Men, Merit

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• To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Credit, Cold, Gravity

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• Dame Fortune, like most others of the female sex, is generally most indulgent to the nimble-mettled blockheads.

  Thomas Otway

  Sex, Dames, Female

  Thomas Otway (1712). “The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway, in Two Volumes”, p.199

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• A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Ignorant, Excellence

  William Hazlitt (2005). “The Fight and Other Writings”, p.464, Penguin UK

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• swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.

  Mary Collyer

  Stupid, Ignorant, Said

  Mary Collyer (1749). “Felicia To Charlotte: Being Letters From A Young Lady in the Country, To Her Friend in Town : Containing A Series of the Most Interesting Events, Interspersed with Moral Reflections ...”, p.203

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• The most annoying of all blockheads is a well-read fool.

  Bayard Taylor

  Fool, Annoying, Wells

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• A well-read fool is the most pestilent of blockheads; his learning is a flail which he knows not how to handle, and with which he breaks his neighbor's shins as well as his own. Keep a fellow of this description at arm's length, as you value the integrity of your bones.

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Integrity, Arms, Fool

  François duc de La Rochefoucauld, Stanisław I Leszczyński (King of Poland) (1851). “Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims of Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucauld”, p.181

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• Whoe'er excels in what we prize,
  Appears a hero in our eyes;
  Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,
  Will have the teacher in her thought.
  . . . .
  A blockhead with melodious voice,
  In boarding-schools may have his choice.

  Jonathan Swift

  Girl, Teacher, Teaching

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.681

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• For my part I think the Learned, and Unlearned Blockhead pretty equal; for 'tis all one to me, whether a Man talk Nonsense, or unintelligible Sense, I am diverted and edified alike by either; the one enjoys himself less, but suffers his Friends to do it more; the other enjoys himself and his own Humour enough, but will let no body else do it in his Company.

  Mary Astell

  Men, Thinking, Suffering

  Mary Astell (2002). “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies”, p.254, Broadview Press

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• The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.

  Alexander Pope

  Book, Learning, Ears

  Alexander Pope, John Wilson Croker (1871). “The Works: Including Several Hundred Unpublished Letters, and Other New Materials”, p.72

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• Any blockhead can arrange a sublet. All I ever wanted was to support myself on art.

  Walter Keane

  Art, Ambition, Support

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• The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part. Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Real, Home, Men

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “Studies in Pessimism: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.23, 谷月社

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• Always 'duty.' I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Beautiful, Feet, Sick

  Gustave Flaubert (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Gustave Flaubert (Illustrated)”, p.195, Delphi Classics

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• Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable - as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Taken, Liberty, Crowds

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• It is intolerable that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.

  Charles James

  Power Of One, Should, Mischief

  "George III" by John Brooke, Panther, (pp. 363-364), 1974.

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• We want to get rid of the militarist not simply because he hurts and kills, but because he is an intolerable thick-voiced blockhead who stands hectoring and blustering in our way of achievement.

  H. G. Wells

  Hurt, War, Achievement

  H.G. Wells (1921). “The Outline of History”

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• I myself identify as a recovering Blockhead. You'd be surprised how many twenty- and thirty-something hipster chicks have the NKOTB skeleton in their closet, albeit artfully concealed by stacks of Ksubi skinny jeans and ironic Judas Priest T-shirts.

  Diablo Cody

  Hipster, Jeans, Skeletons

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• Never give your heart to a blockhead.

  Charles M. Schulz

  Heart, Giving

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• I started freestyling with friends about eight or nine years ago. I started writing also around the same time, but didn't meet blockhead until about '94. I started making beats not until about '96.

  Aesop Rock

  Writing, Eight, Years

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• 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.

  John Dryden

  Men, Faces, Fool

  1693 A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, 'The Art of Satire'.

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• Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Passion, World, Stuff

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “The Wisdom of Life”, p.30, Cosimo Classics

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• What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.

  Robert Southey

  Wise, Children, Reading

  Robert Southey (1872). “The Doctor, &c”, p.87

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• For the devil is better pleased with coarse blockheads and with folks who are useful to nobody; because where such characters abound, then things do not go on prosperously here on earth.

  Martin Luther

  Character, Devil, Goes On

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