A Fool’s Errand Quotes

“There are two kinds of Fools. The real Fool is the most sincere of mortals: the Court Fool and his kind—the trifling, jesting buffoon—but simulate the family virtue, and steal the family name, for sordid purposes.”
― Albion Winegar Tourgée, A Fool's Errand: By One of the Fools

“The failure of what we called Reconstruction hurt him mighty bad, an', to my mind, hed more ter du with takin' him off than the fever. That's why he hed that line put on his tombstone. What is it? Let me git out my glasses, child, and I'll read it for ye: - 'He followed the counsel of the Wise, And became a Fool thereby.'
What does it mean? I'm not jest sure that I rightly know, son; but it was one of his notions that he'd been fooled, along with the rest of us, by tryin' to work up to the marks of men that only half-knew what sort of a job they were layin' out. He was a good man, according to my notion, and an earnest one; but--somehow it seemed as if his ideas wa'n't calkilated for this meridian.”
― Albion W. Tourgée, A Fool’s Errand