Foolish Quotes - Page 31

• O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below!

  Dante Alighieri

  Men, Wings, Anxiety

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• A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him.

  Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

  Fool, Plus, Admire

  "The Art of Poetry (Canto I)". Book by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, 1674.

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• The foolish square calves pretend to be frightened of our train. Bluffers! Haven't they seen it every day since they were born? It's just an excuse to shake the joy out of their heels.

  Emily Carr

  Squares, Joy, Excuse

  Emily Carr (2009). “Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr”, p.122, D & M Publishers

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• Whoever is wise is apt to suspect and be diffident of himself, and upon that account is willing to "hearken unto counsel"; whereas the foolish man, being in proportion to his folly full of himself, and swallowed up in conceit, will seldom take any counsel but his own, and for that very reason, because it is his own.

  John Balguy

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

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• It's easy enough to make the truth look silly. A man never seems more foolish-like than he does when he's speaking his whole mind and heart.

  Margery Allingham

  Silly, Heart, Men

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• Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but their power exists for good or evil.

  Winifred Holtby

  Teacher, Teaching, Government

  Winifred Holtby, Alice Holtby (1941). “Letters to a friend”

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• Lying contains the same hostile elements as a practical joke in that the 'victim' ends up looking foolish in his own eyes and laughable in everyone else's.

  Sue Grafton

  Lying, Eye, Elements

  Sue Grafton (2010). “"O" is for Outlaw”, p.76, Macmillan

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• I am not so foolish as to murmur, if now, since I have drunk up my wine and beer, I have to put up with skimmed milk and sour.

  Sigrid Undset

  Wine, Beer, Drunk

  Sigrid Undset (2011). “The Bridal Wreath: Kristin Lavransdatter”, p.44, Vintage

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• It's necessary in order to attract attention, to dazzle at all costs, to be disapproved of by serious people and quoted by the foolish.

  Jill Johnston

  Change, Order, People

  Jill Johnston (1973). “Lesbian nation: the feminist solution”, Simon & Schuster

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• When in company with literary women, make no allusions to 'learned ladies,' or 'blue stockings,' or express surprise that they should have any knowledge of housewifery, or needle-work, or dress; or that they are able to talk on 'common things.' It is rude and foolish and shows that you really know nothing about them, either as a class or as individuals.

  Eliza Leslie

  Blue, Should Have, Class

  Eliza Leslie (1839). “Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies as Regards Their Conversation; Manners; Dress; with Full Instructions and Advice in Letter Writing [!]; Receiving Presents; Incorrect Words”, p.259

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• This is life...Not a peace treaty, not an idealistic dream, but a grim dance of death and survival. The strong live on while the weak--the ones too small or too foolish to fight back--die in agony and blood.

  Dan Wells

  Dream, Strong, Fighting

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• You know what they say, 'You have to work at wisdom; you have to take pains to be reasonable, but to be foolish, just let yourself go.

  Louise Colet

  Pain, Reasonable, Knows

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• Hee that demands misseth not, unlesse his demands be foolish.

  George Herbert

  Demand

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.333

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• Advertising ... is a parasitic activity; it forces goods for which there is no real need or demand on a foolish or even a reluctant public, always by appealing to their lower instincts.

  Ann Bridge

  Real, Needs, Demand

  Ann Bridge (2013). “Singing Waters”, p.175, A&C Black

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• And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

  Sophocles

  Fool, Action, Strikes

  Sophocles (1984). “The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus”, p.60, Penguin

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• Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,
  That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!
  If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,
  His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Brother, Suffering, Pages

  "Roman Elegies". Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Elegy 2 (First version), 1902.

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• If a man is wise, he gets rich an' if he gets rich, he gets foolish, or his wife does. That's what keeps the money movin' around.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  Wise, Money, Men

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• I am not so foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies; but to exalt particular forms, to adhere to oneform a moment after it is outgrown, is unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Essentials, Body, Spirit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1906). “Miscellanies”

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• Foolish, whenever you take the meanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it into the obedient spiracle ofyour character and aims.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Work, Character, Aim

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1316, Delphi Classics

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• A foolish man... built his house upon the sand.

  Matthew McConaughey

  Men, Foolish Man, House

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• Rabbits are a foolish people. They do not fight except with their own kind, nor use their paws except for feet, and appear to have no reason for existence but to furnish meals for meat-eaters. In flight they seem to rebound from the earth of their own elasticity, but keep a sober pace going to the spring. It is the young watercress that tempts them and the pleasures of society, for they seldom drink.

  Mary Hunter Austin

  Spring, Fighting, Feet

  Mary Hunter Austin, Marjorie Pryse (1987). “Stories from the Country of Lost Borders”, p.25, Rutgers University Press

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• I speak "with absolute certainty" only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any "authority" let alone "divine revelation"!

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Believe, Doe, Would Be

  Collected Writings, Volume XI, p. 466, www.katinkahesselink.net. October 1889.

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• I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. I shall not speak much for fear of saying foolish things; I will risk still less for fear of doing them, for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence which they have deigned to show me. Such is the conduct which until now I have followed and will follow.

  Marquis de Lafayette

  Ideas, Common Sense, Risk

  "George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership" by George Athan Billias, (p. 219), 1994.

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• Education makes some men wiser, others more ridiculous and foolish!

  Norm MacDonald

  Men, Ridiculous, Wiser

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• I think sometimes - do not we all? - that perhaps the present year is my last year and that all my busyness is foolish.

  Marjorie Bowen

  Death, Thinking, Years

  Marjorie Bowen (1951). “To Bed at Noon”

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