Fool Quotes - Page 14

• My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

  Bob Marley

  Music, Stupid, Forever

  Bob Marley (2012). “Listen to Bob Marley: The Man, the Music, the Revolution”, Open Road Media

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• God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.

  Otto von Bismarck

  America, Special, United States

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• Scientists are the easiest to fool. ... They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors-they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.

  James P. Hogan

  Children, Science, Thinking

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• You can fool people some of the time, but you can't fool them all of the time.

  Aesop

  Honesty, People

  Albert Cullum, Aesop (1972). “Aesop in the afternoon”

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• Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace.

  Francis Quarles

  Beauty, Wise, Heart

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.57

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• Then might ye see
  Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
  And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
  Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
  The sport of winds; all these upwhirl'd aloft
  Fly to the rearward of the world far off
  Into a limbo large and broad, since called
  The paradise of fools.

  John Milton

  Sports, Wind, Rags

  John Milton, “Paradise Lost: Book 03”

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• Better be a foole then a knave.
  [Better be a fool than a knave.]

  George Herbert

  Knaves

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• How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female says, in the tone of one clinching an argument, 'Edgar says -- ' And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool.

  Agatha Christie

  Intelligent, Perfect, Tone

  Agatha Christie (1931). “The man in the brown suit”

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• You cannot fool an audience.

  Marian Anderson

  Audience

  Marian Anderson (1956). “My Lord, what a Morning: An Autobiography”, University of Illinois Press

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• Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of them; and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools by those who, however prudent in their opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Courage, Opportunity, Prudent

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.476

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• The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.

  Blaise Pascal

  Unhappy, Reason, Authority

  Blaise Pascal (1829). “Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects”, p.263

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• Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.

  William Shenstone

  War, Toil, Pursue

  William Shenstone, “The Judgement Of Hercules”

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• Even in the tragedies, Shakespeare always put in parts for the comic actors because his audience was mixed. He puts in people who talk like aristocrats. He puts in idiots and fools. He puts in certain middle-range characters. And when you go to the Globe, you realize how that all works. The people who paid more sat in seats around the edge. Everybody else paid a penny. They put it into a tin box - that's why we call it the "box office." They stood in the pit, but they were very close, so when Hamlet was doing his soliloquy, it was addressed to you, the audience - right there.

  Margaret Atwood

  Character, People, Office

  "Margaret Atwood Remixes Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” as a Prison Drama". Interview With Maddie Oatman, www.motherjones.com. September/October 2016.

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• The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one's self a fool.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Hero, Self, Doubt

  The Blithedale Romance ch. 2 (1852)

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• I lose my patience, and I own it too,
  When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;
  While if our Elders break all reason's laws,
  These fools demand not pardon but Applause.

  Alexander Pope

  Law, Criticism, Demand

  Alexander Pope, William Warburton (1751). “The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq., with His Last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements; as They Were Delivered to the Editor a Little Before His Death; Together with the Commentaries and Notes of Mr. Warburton”, p.129

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• He was the freeman whom the truth made free;
  Who first of all, the bands of Satan broke;
  Who broke the bands of sin, and for his soul,
  In spite of fools consulted seriously.

  Robert Pollok

  Freedom, Soul, Firsts

  Robert Pollok (1833). “The Course of Time, a Poem: With a Memoir of the Author, an Introductory Notice, a Copious Index, and an Analysis Prefixed to Each Book”, p.74

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• Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
  The gaze of fools and pageant of a day;
  So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
  For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

  Alexander Pope

  Pride, Proud, Woe

  Alexander Pope, Henry Francis Cary (1841). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Edited by the Rev. H. F. Cary, Etc”, p.31

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• Let no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away... a bigger fool than when he came to it.

  Bill Vaughan

  Going Away, Use, Astronomy

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• Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Wise, Kings, Real

  Oliver Goldsmith (1820). “Essays and The Bee”

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• A rogue is a roundabout fool.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Rogues

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1851). “Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.11

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• Were I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Children, Men, Humanity

  Oliver Goldsmith (1835). “His Works”, p.168

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• I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Country, Character, Men

  Oliver Goldsmith (1835). “His Works”, p.241

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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, Doe, Higher

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

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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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• Hath fortune dealt thee ill cards? let wisdom make thee a good gamester. In a fair gale, every fool may sail, but wise behavior in a storm commends the wisdom of a pilot; to bear adversity with an equal mind is both the sign and glory of a brave spirit.

  Francis Quarles

  Wise, Adversity, Brave

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