Quotes About Foolishness

“Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.”
― Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
― Confucius

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”
― Colette

“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
― Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes”
― Robert Jordan, To the Blight

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
― Euripides, Bacchae

“If you fear nothing, then you are not brave. You are merely too foolish to be afraid.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, Skin Trade

“I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so.”
― John Donne, The Complete English Poems

“Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.

”
― Cher

“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, Hocus Pocus

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
― George W. Bush

“But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals
Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .”
― Nick Cave

“A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”
― Molière

“She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.”
― Jeffery Deaver, The Bodies Left Behind

“Compromise is a stalling between two fools.”
― Stephen Fry

“Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.”
― Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change

“He's acting as foolish as a kitten... but then, everyone's entitled to a little foolishness once in a while.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. ”
― Alice Walker

“Our wisdom comes from our experience,
and our experience comes from our foolishness.”
― Sacha Guitry

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.”
― Robert Burns, The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Burns

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“If it is ones lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness.-The Count of Monte Cristo”
― Alexandre Dumas

“One of the greatest evils is the foolishness of a good man. For the giving man to withhold helping someone in order to first assure personal fortification is not selfish, but to elude needless self-destruction; martyrdom is only practical when the thought is to die, else a good man faces the consequence of digging a hole from which he cannot escape, and truly helps no one in the long run.”
― Mike Norton, Just Another War Story

“Sorry is the fool who trades his soul for a corvette Thinks he'll get the girl he'll only get the mechanic.”
― Eddie Vedder

“Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“Royse Bergon: "I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my father, who is a prudent, cautious man, always looking for men's hidden, selfish motivations. No one can cheat him. But I've seen him cheat himself. If you understand what I mean."
Caz: "Yes."
R.B.: "It was very foolish of you to attack that vile Roknari galley-man."
Caz: "Yes."
R.B.: "And yet, I think, given the same circumstances you would do it again."
Caz: "Knowing what I know now...it would be harder. But I would hope... I would pray, Royse, that the gods would still lend me such foolishness in my need."
R.B: "What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father's gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool, too, Caz?"
Caz: "Oh," "I'm sure of it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold