Foolishness quotes

"These sons belong me, and this wealth belongs me," — with such thoughts the fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how much less sons and wealth? Max Muller
(also about
Property)
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. Henry David Thoreau
(also about
Rules)
He who hesitates is a damned fool. Mae West
(also about
Decisions)
In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause. George Eliot
(also about
Wisdom)
Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public? Rudyard Kipling
(also about
Society, Public)
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Ralph Waldo Emerson
(also about
Prejudice, Mind, Stereotypes)

Foolishness quotes by Francois Voltaire

Also about
Freedom, Prejudice, Reason
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. Elbert Hubbard
(also about
Wisdom)
The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame. George Gordon Byron
(also about
Fame)
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King Jr
(also about
Learning)
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise. George Orwell
(also about
Life, Youth, Delusion, Suffering)

Foolishness quotes by Faina Ranevskaya

Also about
Humour, People, Brain, Sarcasm, Women, Play of Words
There are people yuo want to come up to and ask if it's hard to live without a brain. - What Is baldness?
- It's a slow but progressive transformation of a head into an ass. First, the shape, and then, the content. Why all the fools are such women?
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. Buddha
(also about
Wisdom, Work, Laziness, Procrastination)
We don't have education, we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool. Bob Marley
(also about
Inspiration, Education)

Foolishness quotes by Paulo Coelho

Also about
Love, Wisdom, Action
The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love. There are two kinds of idiots - those who don't take action because they have received a threat, and those who think they are taking action because they have issued a threat.
A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. George Washington
(also about
Men & Women)

Foolishness quotes by Benjamin Franklin

Also about
Criticism, Honesty, Cheat, Wisdom, Advice, Beauty, Ignorance, Learning, Satire
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest. Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it. Beauty and folly are old companions. A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish. Chuck Palahniuk
(also about
Discovery)

Foolishness quotes by Moliere

Also about
Education, Ignorance, Intelligence, World, People, Vice, Misanthropy
A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool. Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place. Displaying vice to the mockery of men deals it a great blow.
Men put up with admonition but are loath to be mocked.
One might be willing to be wicked; one cannot bear to appear foolish.

Foolishness quotes by Charles de Montesquieu

Also about
Books, Stupidity
Solemnity is the shield of idiots. Nature, in her wisdom, seems to have arranged it so that men's stupidity should be ephemeral, and books make them immortal. A fool ought to be content having exacerbated everyone around him, but he insists tormenting future generations.

Foolishness quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Also about
Intelligence, Self-determination, Heart, Mind
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. I could not become anything; neither good nor bad; neither a scoundrel nor an honest man; neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything, that only a fool can become something. A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.
Common sense is very uncommon. Horace Greeley
(also about
Life, Mind, Reason)

Foolishness quotes by Joanne Rowling

Also about
Books, Intellect, Genius, Personality, Wisdom, Poverty, Life, Time, Weakness
Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out. Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.
Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools. Time is making fools of us again. Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily — weak people, in other words...

Foolishness quotes by Thomas More

Also about
Wealth, Arrogance, Education, Learning
[How can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep. Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

Foolishness quotes by Jane Austen

Also about
Emotions, Marriage, Men
Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.

Foolishness quotes by William Blake

Also about
Wisdom, Persistence, Time
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. To generalize is to be an idiot. The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness. Kurt Vonnegut
(also about
Death, Vanity, Vietnam, Waste)
No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there. F. Scott Fitzgerald
(also about
Ideas, Great)
I know now that what makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice. William Faulkner
(also about
Advice)

Foolishness quotes by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Also about
Despair, Encouraging, Theatre, Comedy, Skill, Comedians
There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair. The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

Foolishness quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Also about
People, Nature, Society, Indifference
Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves. Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity George Bernard Shaw
(also about
Love, Curiosity)