Folly Quotes - Page 26

• Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Hypocrisy, Safety

  Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.23

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• Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Character, Pride

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.131

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• Where there is emulation, there will be vanity; where there is vanity, there will be folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vanity, Emulation

  Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1787). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...”, p.83

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• The choking, sweltering, deadly, and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. Slopshirts attainable three-halfpence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Stupidity, Soul

  Thomas Carlyle, Henry Duff Traill (2010). “The Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.29, Cambridge University Press

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• gardening is a madness, a folly that does not go away with age. Quite the contrary.

  May Sarton

  Gardening, Going Away, Age

  May Sarton (2014). “At Seventy: A Journal”, p.30, Open Road Media

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• Every man's follies are the caricature resemblances of his wisdom.

  John Sterling

  Men, Caricatures, Every Man

  John Sterling (1848). “Essays and Tales: Fragments from the travels of Theodore Elbert. Thoughts. Tales and apologues”, p.137

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• Now, however, I see the folly of attempting to hitch one's wagon to a star with a harness that does not belong to it.

  Helen Keller

  Stars, Wagons, Doe

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.163, Om Books International

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• If thou dost still retain the same ill habits, the same follies, too, still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.

  John Dryden

  Art, Vices, Slave

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• Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Perfection, Causes, Misery

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1957). “Notebooks”

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• It is sheer folly when all is gone to lose even one's passage money.

  Juvenal

  Gone, Passages, Sheer

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• Folly growes without watering.

  George Herbert

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.344

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• Folly ends where genuine hope begins.

  William Cowper

  Hope, Ends, Genuine

  William Cowper (1872). “Table talk, Truth, Expostulation, Hope, Charity, and other poems”, p.91

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• With the latitude of unbounded scurrility, it is easy enough to attain the character of a wit, especially when it is considered how wonderfully pleasant it is to the generality of the public to see the folly of their acquaintance exposed by a third person.

  Henry Fielding

  Character, Easy, Enough

  Henry Fielding (1782). “The Beauties of Fielding: Carefully Selected ... To which is Added Some Account of His Life”, p.199

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• Experience is the name men give to their follies or their sorrows.

  Alfred de Musset

  Men, Names, Giving

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• The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Ridiculous, Foolish

  Oliver Goldsmith, David Masson (1869). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.156

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• Christianity has no ceremonial. It has forms, for forms are essential to order; but it disdains the folly of attempting to reinforce the religion of the heart by the antics of the mind.

  George Croly

  Heart, Order, Mind

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• Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Want, Rooms, Suspicion

  Walter Savage Landor (1856). “Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor”, p.194

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• Reason exercises merely the function of preserving order, is, so to say, the police in the region of art. In life it is mostly a cold arithmetician summing up our follies.

  Heinrich Heine

  Art, Exercise, Order

  Heinrich Heine (1888). “Wit, Wisdom, and Pathos”

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• Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Fool, Doe

  Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.222

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• Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not gives advantage to the danger; it is less folly not to endeavor the prevention of the evil thou fearest than to fear the evil which thy endeavor cannot prevent.

  Francis Quarles

  Fear, Evil, Giving

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• Wrinkle not thy face with too much laughter, lest thou become ridiculous; neither wanton thy heart with too much mirth, lest thou become vain: the suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.

  Francis Quarles

  Laughter, Heart, Wrinkles

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.56

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• Every man's vanity ought to be his greatest shame; and every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret.

  Francis Quarles

  Men, Vanity, Secret

  Francis Quarles (1856). “Enchiridion: Containing Institutions Divine Contemplative Practical: Moral Ethical Oeconomical Political”, p.134

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• Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.

  Francis Quarles

  Pride, Vanity, Shame

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• Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

  Edmund Burke

  Ambition, Vanity, Sin

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• Let the sexes mutually forgive each other their follies; or, what is much better, let them combine their talents for their general advantage.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Sex, Forgiving, Talent

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1824). “Works”, p.26

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