Folly Quotes - Page 21

• If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.

  James G. Frazer

  Wise, Long, Crime

  "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion". Book by James G. Frazer, 1890.

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• Children who wish to become good and great men or good and noble women, should try to know well all the people whom they meet. Thus they will find that there is no one who has not much of good; and when they see some great folly, or some meanness, or some cowardice, or some fault or weakness in another person, they should examine themselves carefully. Then they will see that, perhaps, they too have some of the same fault in themselves - although perhaps it does not come out in the same way - and then they must try to conquer that fault.

  Bram Stoker

  Children, Men, People

  Bram Stoker (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Bram Stoker (Illustrated)”, p.2484, Delphi Classics

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• Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Wisdom, Faces, Infinity

  Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1918). “Lazarus”

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• The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs.. .May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything [a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings].

  Max Beckmann

  War, Blood, Boredom

  "Max Beckmann". Book by Stephan Lackner, 1983.

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• The loyalty, well held to fools, does make Our faith mere folly.

  William Shakespeare

  Loyalty, Doe, Fool

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Weller Singer, Charles Symmons (1850). “The Dramatic Works and Poems of William Shakspeare: With Notes, Original and Selected, and Introductory Remarks to Each Play”, p.294

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• Covering discretion with a coat of folly.

  William Shakespeare

  Covering, Coats, Discretion

  William Shakespeare (1816). “The Works of William Shakspeare...: Collated Verbatim with the Most Authentic Copies, and Revised, with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators”, p.401

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• Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!

  Ambrose Bierce

  Evil, Shadow, Flats

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.1221, Delphi Classics

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• Arrogance is ever accompanied by folly.

  Plato

  Arrogance

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• The customs of the world are so many conventional follies.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  World, Conventional, Customs

  Edgar Allan Poe (2004). “The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.455, Wordsworth Editions

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• A great nation assailed by war has not only its frontiers to protect: it must also protect its good sense. It must protect itself from the hallucinations, injustices, and follies which the plague lets loose.

  Romain Rolland

  War, Hallucinations, Injustice

  Romain Rolland, Charles Kay Ogden (1916). “Above the battle”

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• Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.

  Barbara Tuchman

  War, Ambition, Race

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.11, Crux Publishing Ltd

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• We all have our youthful follies, embarassing to recall -- but people somehow find it hard to dismiss as a youthful folly anything that has happened to be a financial success.

  John Wyndham

  People, Financial, Embarassing

  John Wyndham (2003). “The Day of the Triffids”

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• Remember that the Tarot is a great and sacred arcanum - its abuse is an obscenity in the inner and a folly in the outer. It is intended for quite other purposes than to determine when the tall dark man will meet the fair rich widow.

  Jack Parsons

  Dark, Men, Abuse

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• If someone tries to use you as a tool, you shouldn't mind it, because it is their choice and folly, not yours.

  Jude Morgan

  Choices, Mind, Trying

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• For the rest of my life there are two days that will never again trouble me. The first day is yesterday with all its blunders and tears, follies and defeats. Yesterday has passed away, beyond my control forever. The other day is tomorrow with all its pitfalls and threats, its dangers and mystery. Until the sun rises again I have no stake in tomorrow, for it is still unborn.

  Og Mandino

  Two, Yesterday, Forever

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• It would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it, they pay the penalty, but compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Mistake, People, Political

  Calvin Coolidge (1924). “Calvin Coolidge, His Ideals of Citizenship as Revealed Through His Speeches and Writings”

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• The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Degrees, Bliss, Form

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• Hope's Folly is a rapid-fire romp through futuristic political intrigue and high-risk passion The tug of war between decorum and passion keeps the romantic intrigue smoldering. With Hope's Folly, Linnea Sinclair builds on a secure reputation as a leading fashioner of science fiction romance. She straddles and blends these genres with a unique bravura and wit.

  Philip K. Jason

  War, Passion, Unique

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• It begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.

  Steven Pinker

  Men, Illusion, Skepticism

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.209, Penguin

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• Scientific advertising has altered many old plans and conceptions. It has proved many long established methods to be folly

  Claude C. Hopkins

  Long, Advertising, Method

  Claude C. Hopkins (2010). “Scientific Advertising”, p.82, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Dream, Reality, Hands

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.225, Simon and Schuster

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• If the lives of men were relieved of all need, hardship and adversity; if everything they took in hand were successful, they would be so swollen with arrogance that, though they might not burst, they would present the spectacle of unbridled folly-nay, they would go mad. And I may say, further, that a certain amount of care or pain or trouble is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Pain, Adversity, Successful

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2007). “Studies in Pessimism”, p.6, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Sheep, Revolution, Ass

  Alexander Hamilton, Donald R. Hickey, Connie D. Clark (2006). “Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder”, p.58, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

  William Hazlitt

  Laughing, Weakness, Comedy

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.180, Delphi Classics

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• Politically, Swift was one of those people who are driven into a sort of perverse Toryism by the follies of the progressive party of the moment.

  George Orwell

  Party, People, Progressive

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946”

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