Folly Quotes

For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We should be careful indeed what we say.

We are all fools in love.

The rich fool is like a pig that is choked by its own fat.

Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Do not spread the compost on the weeds.

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow man.

I believe that history is capable of anything. There exists no folly that men have not tried out.

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom spun too fine.

What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue!

A nod from a lord is a breakfast for a fool.

One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense." "Or else a fool.

Many that are not mad have, sure, more lack of reason.

Fond of those hives where folly reigns,And cards and scandal are the chains,Where the pert virgin slights a name,And scorns to redden into shame.

Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results.

The man that isn't jolly after drinking is just a drivelling idiot, to my thinking.

Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.

Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.

The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

Vanity, not love, has been my folly.

This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails.

Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.

That folly of old age which is called dotage is peculiar to silly old men, not to age itself.

Love is your master, for he masters you;And he that is so yoked by a foolMethinks should not be chronicled for wise.

What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more journey money, the less there remains of the journey?

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.

Marriage marks the end of many short follies - being one long stupidity.

That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.

Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.

Can there be greater foolishness than the respect you pay to people collectively when you despise them individually?

Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor.

In growing old, we become more foolish - and more wise.

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.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool.

To think to be wise alone is a very great folly.

Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

Some immemorial imbecilities have been added deliberately, on the ground that it is just as interesting to note how foolish men have been as to note how wise they have been.

Knowing the future is the flower of the Way, and the beginning of folly.

Life with Fools consists in Drinking; with the wise Man, living's Thinking.

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, It does from childishness.

Anger and folly walk cheeck by jowl.

No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.

Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!

A fool has not material enough to be good.[Fr., Un sot n'a pas assez d'etoffe pour etre bon.]