Folly Quotes - Page 22

• Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Apples, Adam

  "History of the World in Epitome (For Use in Martian Infant Schools)". Book by Bertrand Russell, as quoted in Slater Bertrand Russell (1994), p. 136, 1959.

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• The great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists .

  John Maynard Keynes

  Atheist, Character, Escaping

  John Maynard Keynes (2016). “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”, p.15, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Fashion, though Folly's child, and guide of fools, Rules e'en the wisest, and in learning rules.

  George Crabbe

  Fashion, Children, Fool

  'The Library' (1808) l. 167

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• I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly.

  H. Rider Haggard

  Men, Littles, Superstitions

  H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lin Carter, Rudyard Kipling, Eando Binder (2014). “The Lost World MEGAPACK ®: 22 Modern and Classic Tales”, p.421, Wildside Press LLC

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• A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

  Alain de Botton

  Achievement, Ordinary, Enough

  "The Consolations of Philosophy". Book by Alain de Botton, Chapter IV, Consolation For Inadequacy, 2000.

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• When an alluring woman comes in at the door," warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, "discretion may be found up the chimney". It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: "The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.

  Ernest Bramah

  Doors, Should Have, Profound

  Ernest Bramah (1963). “The Celestial Omnibus”

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• The minute we leave south Lebanon we will have to erase the word Hezbollah from our vocabulary, because the whole idea of the State of Israel versus Hezbollah was sheer folly from the outset. It most certainly no longer will be relevant when Israel returns to her internationally recognized northern border.

  Amos Oz

  Vocabulary, Israel, Ideas

  "Try a Little Tenderness". Haaretz Interview, March 17, 2000.

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• There are few of us that are not rather ashamed of our sins and follies as we look out on the blessed morning sunlight, which comes to us like a bright-winged angel beckoning us to quit the old path of vanity that stretches its dreary length behind us.

  George Eliot

  Morning, Blessed, Angel

  George Eliot (2016). “Complete Works Of George Eliot”, p.133, ShandonPress

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• Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish, And serve the ends of wisdom.

  George Eliot

  Prayer, Wish, Ends

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4230, Delphi Classics

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• Many brief follies--that is what you call love. And your marriage puts an end to many brief follies, with a single long stupidity.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Long, Stupidity, Ends

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Graham Parkes (2008). “Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody”, p.61, Oxford University Press

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• Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government.

  Learned Hand

  Passion, Men, Law

  Learned Hand (1968). “The art and craft of judging: the decisions of Judge Learned Hand”

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• Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Vanity, Mad

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile”, p.249, Courier Corporation

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• Never for a moment do we lay aside our mistrust of the ideals established by society, and of the convictions which are kept by it in circulation. We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. ... humanity meaning consideration for the existence and the happiness of individual human beings.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Humanity, Matter, Moments

  "Kulturphilosophie". Book by Albert Schweitzer. Translated by C. T. Campion as "Philosophy of Civilisation" (1949) Chapter 26, 1923.

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• For disappointments, that come not by our own folly, they are the trials or corrections of Heaven: and it is our own fault, if they prove not our advantage.

  William Penn

  Disappointment, Heaven, Trials

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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• For what is there more hideous than avarice, more brutal than lust, more contemptible than cowardice, more base than stupidity and folly?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Stupidity, Lust, Cowardice

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1853). “The treatises of M.T. Cicero on the nature of the gods [tr. by T.Francklin]; on divination; on fate; on the republic; on the laws; and on standing for the consulship, tr. chiefly by the ed. C.D.Yonge [and F.Barham].”, p.420

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• Love must kiss that mortal's eyesWho hopes to see fair Arcady.No gold can buy you entrance there;But beggared Love may go all bare-No wisdom won with weariness;But Love goes in with Folly's dress-No fame that wit could ever win;But only Love may lead Love in.

  Henry Cuyler Bunner

  Kissing, Winning, Gold

  Henry Cuyler Bunner (1896). “The Poems of H. C. Bunner ...”

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• Some people seem born with a head in which the thin partition that divides great wit from folly is wanting.

  Robert Southey

  People, Born, Wit

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• Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.

  Joseph Conrad

  Fool, Made

  Joseph Conrad (2016). “Joseph Conrad: The Complete Novels [Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, etc.] (Book House)”, p.1469, Book House

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• Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Running, Courses

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• The gentlemen who wrote the Constitution were as suspicious of efficient government as they were wary of democracy, a "turbulence and a folly" that was associated with the unruly ignorance of an urban mob.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Ignorance, Government, Gentleman

  Lewis H. Lapham (1997). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, p.73, Verso

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• For similar folly, our own country, in the transition from the colonial period, also paid a fearful price; and from a like catastrophe the United States has been twice saved in our time by the arguments formulated by Turgot.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Country, United States, Transition

  ANDREW DICKSON WHITE (1910). “SEVEN GREAT STATESMEN IN THE WARFARE OF HUMANITY WITH UNREASON”

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• 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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