Folly Quotes - Page 33

• Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.

  Henry James

  Dream, Strong, Believe

  Henry James (2016). “The Daily Henry James: A Year of Quotes from the Work of the Master”, p.4, University of Chicago Press

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• I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.

  Jane Austen

  Believe, Sacrifice, Intelligent

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• And yet, just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life. One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order to keep on a straight course.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Frustration, Men, Order

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• Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.

  Daniel Handler

  Mother, Women, Numbers

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• A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Thinking, Errors, Ideas

  Ann Radcliffe (1795). “The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry”, p.15

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• ...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

  William Faulkner

  Men, Giving, Victory

  The Sound and the Fury pt. 2 (1929)

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• He thinks great folly, child,' said Aslan. "This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam's son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!

  C. S. Lewis

  Song, Children, Thinking

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• A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dullness may not red lips are sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Wise, Sweet, Eye

  William Makepeace Thackeray (2017). “Vanity Fair”, p.321, Pan Macmillan

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• Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear.

  Rex Stout

  Fear, Dodge, I Can

  Rex Stout (2010). “The Doorbell Rang”, p.15, Bantam

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• For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more--remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Heart, Men, Cynical

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2014). “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien”, p.337, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?

  Rudyard Kipling

  Lord, Accounts

  Rudyard Kipling (2016). “Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated Edition): 5 Novels & 350+ Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Military Works and Autobiographical Writings from one of the most popular writers in England, known for The Jungle Book, Kim, The Man Who Would Be King”, p.25, e-artnow (Open Publishing)

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• Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

  Jane Austen

  Vanity, Affection, Blind

  Jane Austen (2005). “Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1”, p.150, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame; I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of shame; But I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves, Where the rainbows play in the flying spray, 'Mid the keen salt kiss of the waves.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Wine, Kissing, Play

  Eugene O'Neill, Donald Clifford Gallup (1980). “Poems, 1912-1944”, Ticknor & Fields, 1980

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• If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

  Ronald Reagan

  Self, Faces, Facts

  Ronald Reagan (1983). “A Time for Choosing: The Speeches of Ronald Reagan, 1961-1982”, Gateway Books

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• They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

  Joseph Conrad

  Stupid, Safety, Perfect

  Joseph Conrad (2016). “Heart of Darkness”, p.77, Xist Publishing

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• With all my ideas and follies I could one day found a corporate company for the propagation of beautiful but unreliable imaginings.

  Robert Walser

  Beautiful, Ideas, One Day

  Robert Walser (2014). “Jakob von Gunten”, p.140, New York Review of Books

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• Is it folly to believe in something that is intangible? After all, some of the greatest intangibles are Love, Hope, and Wonder. Another is Deity. The choice to be a fool is yours.

  Vera Nazarian

  Believe, Choices, Fool

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• What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Opportunity, Pygmalion

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.3355, e-artnow

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• for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men

  Herman Melville

  Men, Earth, Madness

  Herman Melville (2016). “Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale”, p.315, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Everything, in retrospect, is obvious. But if everything were obvious, authors of histories of financial folly would be rich . . .

  Michael Lewis

  Would Be, Retrospect, Financial

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• I had paid for my folly and, as a reward, was invited to take part in the nest builder’s performance piece. The script was great. ‘When I bleat here, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and “bleat, bleat”?’ I asked. ‘I feel like “bleat, bleating,” but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I don’t want to steal focus, you know what I mean?

  David Sedaris

  Letting Go, Mother, Mean

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• What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

  Julian Barnes

  Progress, Biceps, Tease

  Julian Barnes (1984). “Flaubert's parrot”, Vintage

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• A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.

  Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

  Men, Laughing, Desire

  Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1952). “Rashomon: and other stories”

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• When Eleanor's arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her. He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her-- she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Eye, Destiny, Hands

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “This Side of Paradise”, p.180, Xist Publishing

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• To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies.

  Oscar Wilde

  Youth, Repeats, Get Back

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.47, Diversion Books

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