Folly Quotes - Page 26

• The folly of mistaking oneself for an oracle is built right into us.

  Paul Valery

  Oracles, Oneself, Built

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• The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Down And, Fraud, Gross

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• It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Demand, Belief

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• Yet we can be sure that whatever fictions exist in Wall Street bookkeeping, the earth is a faithful scribe, a faultless calculator, a superb bookkeeper; we will be held responsible for every bit of our economic folly.

  Thomas Berry

  Wall, Integrity, Faithful

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• Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Peace, Government, Law

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• If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly.

  Ronald Reagan

  Simple, Thinking, Politics

  Ronald Reagan (2016). “The Last Best Hope: The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagan”, p.136, Humanix Books

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• And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop To the low mimic follies of a farce, As a grave matron would to dance with girls.

  Horace

  Girl, Tragedy, Acting

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• It is folly to put the plough in front of the oxen.

  Francois Rabelais

  Oxen, Order, Fronts

  "Gargantua" by François Rabelais, ch. XI, 1534.

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• Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Stubborn, Serious, Heat

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• The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Men, Vices, Deceit

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• Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.

  Aldous Huxley

  Unhappiness, Malice, Consequence

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• A man who is not a fool can rid himself of every folly except vanity.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Vanity, Fool

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• The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Wise, Art, Eye

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• A fool's bolt is soon shot.

  William Shakespeare

  Fool, Shots, Bolts

  William Shakespeare (1805). “The Plays of William Shakspeare: Accurately Printed from the Text of Mr. Steeven's [!] Last Edition, with a Selection of the Most Important Notes ...”, p.175

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• How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!

  William Shakespeare

  Nature, Weakness, Sometimes

  William Shakespeare (1806). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.176

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• Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly.

  William Penn

  Silence, Silence Is

  William Penn (1792). “Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life”, p.34

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• Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.

  William Hazlitt

  Causes, Heroism, Lasts

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1482, Delphi Classics

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• When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Demand, Desperate, Cowardice

  Samuel Johnson (1809). “Works”, p.225

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• London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Fate, Rome

  Samuel Johnson, Thomas Park (1811). “The poetical works of Samuel Johnson: collated with the best editions”, p.12

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• To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Secret, Guilt, Secrecy

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• Sweet bird that shunn'st the nose of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song.

  John Milton

  Song, Sweet, Bird

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• Wine lead to folly, making even the wise to laugh immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent.

  Homer

  Wise, Wine, Laughing

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• I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Silent, Prudence

  "De Oratore", III. 35, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 645-47,

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

  Charles Churchill

  Fashion, Knavery, Use

  1761 The Rosciad, l.455-6.

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• Though folly, robed in purple, shines, Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines, Yet shall they tremble and turn pale When satire wields her mighty flail.

  Charles Churchill

  Purple, Shining, Vices

  Charles Churchill (1822). “The Poems of Charles Churchill ...”, p.77

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