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FOOLS/FOOLISH

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.
.

see: "BORES"
see: "DULL"
see: "IDIOTS"
see: "IGNORANCE"
see: "MEDIOCRITY"
see: "STUPIDITY"
see: "FAILURE" for other related links


A common mistake that people make when trying
to design something completely foolproof was to
underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
--Douglas Adams (1952—2001)
British comic radio dramatist and author.
_Mostly Harmless_ [1992]

Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a
coxcomb is always of a man's own making.
--Joseph Addison (1672—1719)
English essayist, poet, and dramatist.
Attributed in Henry Southgate (ed.)
_Many Thoughts of Many Minds_, p. 225 [1862, 3rd edition].

There's a sucker born every minute.
--attributed to Phineas T. Barnum (1810—1891)
American showman.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people
are such fools to begin with it's just compounding
the felony.
--Robert Benchley (1889—1945)
American humorist and newspaper columnist.
Quoted in Herbert Victor Prochnow
_The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom_ p. 129 [1958].

-

It is like sport to a fool to do wrong, but wise
conduct is pleasure to a man of understanding.
--_Bible_
"Proverbs" 10:23 RSV


A fool’s lips bring him strife,
and his mouth invites a beating.
--_Bible_
"Proverbs" 18:6


As a dog returneth to his vomit,
so a fool returneth to his folly.
--_Bible_
"Proverbs" 26:11


He that walketh with wise men shall be wise:
but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 13:20


Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent
and discerning if he holds his tongue.
--_Bible_
"Proverbs" 17:28 (NIV Bible)

& see

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_Maxims_ #914

-

April Fool, n. The March fool with
another month added to his folly.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

Fools carry their daggers in their open mouths.
--Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818—1885)
American humorist.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou
_Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 49 [1886].

However big the fool, there is always
a bigger fool to admire him.
--Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636—1711)
French critic and poet.
_L'art poétique_, canto 1 [1674]

A fool and his money are soon parted.
--John Bridges (1536—1618)
English bishop.
_A Defence of the Government_ [1587]

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.
--Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873)
British novelist and politician.
In Andrew Steinmetz
_Gems of Genius; or, Words of the Wise_, p. 180 [1838].

Any fool can criticize, condemn,
and complain — and most fools
do.
--Dale Carnegie (1888—1955)
American writer and lecturer.
_How to Win Friends and Influence People_ [1936],
pt. 1 "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People"

He's a muddle-headed fool, with frequent lucid intervals.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
"Don Quixote de la Mancha", pt. 2, ch. 18 [1615]

-

The clouds of mistrust and suspicion have been cleared away.
(On 2 May 1938, accepting Italian annexation of Abyssinia
in exchange for Italian withdrawal from Spain.)
--Neville Chamberlain (1869—1940)
British Conservative politician, Prime Minister [1937—1940].


My good friends, this is the second time in our
history that there has come back from Germany
to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it
is peace for our time. We thank you from the
bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend
you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.
--Neville Chamberlain (1869—1940)
British Conservative politician, Prime Minister [1937—1940].
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_, p. 825 [2004].
Cohan & Major explain:
Speaking to cheering crowds from a first-floor window
of 10 Downing Street after his return from Munich,
1 Oct. 1938. The sense of relief was shared in France,
where a crowd of half a million turned out to welcome
Daladier back from Germany. The phrase 'peace for
our time' seems to be based on words in the Order of
Morning Prayer in the Anglican liturgy: 'Give peace
in our time, 0 Lord.'

-

The public! The public! How many fools
does it take to make up a public?"
--Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741—1794)
French playwright and conversationalist.
_Causeries du lundi_ (essays by Sainte-Beuve) "Chamfort" [22 September 1851]

Young men think old men are fools;
but old men know young men are
fools.
--George Chapman (c. 1559—1634)
English playwright.
_All Fools_, V, i [1605]

To stumble twice against the same
stone, is a proverbial disgrace.
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
_Epistles_ X. 20.
Attributed in J. K. Hoyt & Anna L. Ward (eds.)
_The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_ p. 694 [1881].

-

Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance
than pedantry by her learning.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, XLVIII [1820]


The soundest argument will produce no more conviction
in an *empty* head than the most superficial declamation,
as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a
*vacuum*.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, "Preface" [1821 ed.]


A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness
are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and
we are never more deceived than when we mistake
gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and
pomposity for erudition.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CCII [1821 ed.]


The head of dullness ... loses nothing of her benumbing
and lethargizing influence, by reiterated discharges.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_ [1824 ed.] "Preface"

-

A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
"Conversation", l. 96 [1782]

They must be especially envious when they
see the rich making fools of themselves,
squandering big sums on trivialities. ... What
they do not understand is that folly is to a
great extent a question of opportunity, and
that fools, rich or poor, are always as foolish
as they can manage.
--Robertson Davies (1913—1995)
Canadian author and playwright.
_The Manticore_ [1972]

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Ixion in Heaven_, IV, i [1834]

I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere,
so we will patiently grope round for it.
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930)
Scottish-born writer of detective fiction.
_The Lost World_ [1912]

Those wanting wit affect gravity and go by the
name of solid men; and a solid man is, in plain
English, a solid, solemn fool.
--John Dryden (1631—1700)
English poet, critic, and dramatist.
_Aureng-Zebe_ [1676]

Majorities, the argument of fools, the strength of the weak.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Journal_, [1846], undated entry.

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
--attributed to Euripides (485?—406 B.C.)
Greek dramatist.

The first principle is that you must not
fool yourself — and you are the easiest
person to fool.
--Richard Feynman (1918—1988)
American theoretical physicist.
Commencement address at Caltech, Pasadena, Cal. [1974]

-

If 50 million people believe a foolish
thing, it is still a foolish thing.
--attributed to Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921.

& see:

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become
a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_A Writer's Notebook_ [1949]

-

-

The heart of the fool is in his mouth, but
the mouth of the wise man is in his heart.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1733]


Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools learn in no other.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [December 1743]


The learned fool writes his nonsense in better
language than the unlearned, but still 'tis nonsense.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard Improved_ [1748]

-

A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_ [1732]

In cinema theatres up & down the United Kingdom newsreels
showing Adolf Hitler's troops rupturing the Treaty of Versailles
and the Locarno Pact by marching into the Rhineland were
received with murmurs of approval, applause and even cheers
as last week opened. Newsreels of Poilus marching up to
defend the French frontier were almost everywhere received
by Britons in silence. Inquiring reporters for Baron Beaverbrook
stopped 5,000 citizens to ask: "Do you on the whole prefer
the French or the Germans?" The answer, blazoned next day
in London's Daily Express, was that 21% had no preference,
24% preferred the French and 55% preferred the Germans.
--"Germans Preferred"
_Time_ [23 March 1936]

Of all thieves, fools are the worst;
they rob you of time and temper.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
Attributed in James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations from
Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources_, p. 324 [1899].

A wise man gets more use from his
enemies than a fool from his friends.
--Baltasar Gracián (1601—1658)
Spanish Jesuit philosopher.
_The Art of Worldly Wisdom_ [1647]

Only a sadistic scoundrel — or a fool —
tells the bald truth on social occasions.
--Robert Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_Time Enough for Love_ [1973]

There is no fool to the old fool.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Proverbs_ [1546]

Don't be mean to the fool; put a penny in
his cup, as you do for the blind beggar.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.
_Sinner Sermons_ [1926]

Every man is a dam fool for at least ten minutes
a day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania".
"The Philistine" magazine, published [1895—1915];
this entry from vol. 29 [1909].

Th' feller that agrees with ever'thing you
say is either a fool er he is gettin' ready
t'skin you.
--Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (1868—1930)
American humorist.
_Back Country Folks_ [1913]

Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of
the population — the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we
can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world,
it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority. But I'll be
damned if that means it's right that the fools should dominate
the intelligent.
--Henrik Ibsen (1828—1906)
Norwegian playwright.
_An Enemy of the People_, act IV [1882]

There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is
old, therefore it is good;" the other says, "This
is new, therefore it is better."
--William Ralph Inge (1860—1954)
English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [1911—1934].
_More Lay Thoughts of a Dean_ [1931]

The silliest woman can manage a clever man;
but it needs a very clever woman to manage
a fool!
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_Plain Tales from the Hills_ "Three and - An Extra" [1888]

To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools.
--Jean de La Bruyère (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
_Les Caractères_ [1688] "De la Société"

-

We sometimes see a fool possessed of talent, but never of judgment.
--François de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Maxims_, no. 456 [1665]


Few things are needed to make a wise man happy;
nothing can make a fool content; that is why most
men are miserable.
--François de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Pensées de La Rochefoucauld_ (ed. Claude Barbin) [1693]
"Third Supplement" Maxim LXXX

-

Here cometh April again, and as far as I can
see the world hath more fools in it than ever.
--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.
Attributed in Connie Robertson
_Book of Humorous Quotations_, p. 112 [1998].

Fools learn nothing from wise men,
but wise men learn much from fools.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
Boston University School of Education
_American Education_ [September 1903 issue]
(This quote is also sometimes identified as a Dutch proverb.)

It is a way of calling a man a fool when
no attention is given to what he says.
--Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616—1704)
English journalist and pamphleteer.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 27 [1886].

-

You can fool all of the people some of the time and
some of the people all of the time, but you can't
fool all of the people all of the time.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
In a speech in Clinton, Illinois [8 September 1858].

& note:

One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places
and times, but one cannot fool all men in all places and
ages.
--Denis Diderot (1713—1784)
French writer and philosopher.
_Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences_, vol. 4 [1754]

& see:

You can fool some of the people all of the time and
all of the people some of the time, but you can make
a damn fool of yourself any old time.
--Laurence J. Peter (1919—1990)
Canadian teacher and author.
_Peter's Almanac_ [1982]

& finally:

As any politician will tell you: you can fool all the
people some of the time, and some of the people
all the time — and usually that's enough.
--attributed to Robert Orben (b. 1927)
American magician and comedy writer.

-

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
"Abraham Lincoln" [1864]

I have play'd the fool, the gross fool, to believe
The bosom of a friend will hold a secret
Mine own could not contain.
--Philip Massinger (1583—1640)
English Jacobean and Caroline playwright.
_The Unnatural Combat_, V, ii [c. 1621—1626]

If one man says to thee, "Thou art a donkey," do not mind;
if two speak thus, purchase a saddle for thyself.
--Midrash (4th cent. B.C.—A.D. 12th cent.)

Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the
other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being
tactless, that’s all.
--Henry Miller (1891—1980)
American novelist and essayist.
Letter, March 1939, to author Lawrence Durrell. Published in
The Durrell-Miller Letters 1935—1980 [1988], which was
written shortly after the Nazis had marched into Czechoslovakia.

A knowledgeable fool is a greater
fool than an ignorant fool.
--Jean Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622—1673)
French comic dramatist.
"Les Femmes savantes" [1672]

I enjoy vast delight in the folly of mankind; and,
God be praised, that is an inexhaustible source
of entertainment.
--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689—1762)
English aristocrat and writer.
Letter to the Countess of Mar [1725].

Women, like men, may be persuaded to
confess their faults; but their follies, never.
--Alfred de Musset (1810—1857)
French poet, dramatist, and author.
In Maturin M. Ballou _Notable Thoughts about Women_ p. 375 [1882].

-

Wise men speak because they have something to say;
fools, because they would like to say something.
--Plato (427?—347 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 560 [1891].


As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they
that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.
--Plato (427?—347 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
Attributed in _Mental Recreation Or, Select Maxims_,
p. 286 [Longman & Rees, London, 1831].

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An old doting fool, with one
foot already in the grave.
--Plutarch (A.D. 46?—119?)
Greek philosopher and biographer.
_Morals. On the Training of Children_

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For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
"An Essay on Criticism", l. 625 [1711]


Sir, I admit your gen'ral rule
That every poet is a fool:
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
"Epigram from the French", l. I [1732]

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A wise man rules his passions, a fool obeys them.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
In D. Lyman _The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus_ [1856].

Those who wish to appear wise among
fools, among the wise seem foolish.
--Quintilian (c. 35—100)
Roman rhetorician.
In John Bartlett _Familiar Quotations_, p. 332 [1914].

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish
defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.
--Marie-Jeanne Roland de la Platière [Madame Roland] (1754—1793)
French writer and political figure.
Attributed in J. De Finod (collected and translated)
_A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness_ [1881].

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a
man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
--Joseph Roux (1834—1886)
French parish priest and writer.
_Meditations of a Parish Priest_; tr. from the
third French edition by Isabel F. Hapgood [1886].

It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her
son — and another woman twenty minutes to make a
fool of him.
--Helen Rowland (1875—1950)
American writer.
_A Guide to Men_, prelude [1922]

The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_Dialogues in Limbo_, ch. 3 [1925]

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
--Albert Schweitzer (1875—1965)
Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor.
Quoted in James Cameron
_Point of Departure: An Attempt at Autobiography_ [1967].

The ae half of the warld
thinks the tither daft.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
"Redgauntlet" [1824]

What fools these mortals be.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistles_, 1, "On Saving Time"

-

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, III, ii [1595—1596]


The fool doth think he is wise, but the
wise man knows himself to be a fool.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_As You Like It_, V, i [1599]


I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_As You Like It_, II, vii [1599]


When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Lear_, IV, vi [1605-1606]

-

-

[On leaving the Hotel Metropole, writing in the visitors' book:]
Tomorrow I leave this land of hope [Russia] and
return to our Western countries of despair.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
Quoted in David Caute
_The Fellow-Travellers: A Postscript to the Enlightenment_ [1973].

& see:

Soviet Russia represents a new civilization and a
new culture with a new outlook on life, involving a
new pattern of behavior alike in personal conduct
and in the relation of the individual to the community;
all of which I believe is destined to spread, owing to
its superior intellectual and ethical fitness, to many
other countries in the course of the next hundred
years.
--Beatrice Webb [née Potter] (1858—1943)
English Socialist economist.
Diary entry [28 July 1932].

& see:

Russia proves that you can change human nature
sufficiently in one generation ... these kids despise
a business man ... Service for profit is a sham ... I
believe they will make a race, the meanest of which
will be as noble as the best men of our day.
--Lincoln Steffens (1866—1936)
American journalist.
In _The Letters of Lincoln Steffens_ v. 2, pp.627-8 [1938].

& see:

In the abominable distress of the present world
now Russia's plans seem to me salvation ... the
miserable arguments of its enemies, far from
convincing me, make my blood boil.
--Andre Gide (1869—1951) on 23 April 1932;
French novelist and critic who received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947.

& see:

The Soviet labour camp provided a freedom for its
inmates not usual in our own prisons in this country.
--Pat Sloan
British communist,
_Russia Without Illusions_ [1938]

& see:

Fear haunts workers in a capitalist land. Fear of dismissal,
fear that a thousand workless men stand outside the gate
eager to get his job, breaks the spirit of a man and breeds
servility. Fear of unemployment, fear of slump, fear of trade
depression, fear of sickness, fear of an impoverished old
age lie with crushing weight on the mind of the worker ...
Nothing strikes the visitor to the Soviet Union more forcibly
than the absence of fear.
--Hewlett Johnson (1874—1966)
English clergyman.
_The Socialist Sixth of the World_ [1939]

The previous six entries from M.J. Cohan and
John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_ p. 744-5 [2004].

-

The ultimate result of shielding men from
the effects of folly, is to fill the world
with fools.
--Herbert Spencer (1820—1903)
English philosopher.
_Essays_ [1891] vol. 3 "State Tamperings with Money and Banks"

Etiquette is the invention of wise
men to keep fools at a distance.
--Sir Richard Steele (1672—1729)
Irish-born essayist and dramatist.
Attributed in Edward Parsons Day _Day's Collacon:
An Encyclopaedia Of Prose Quotations_, p. 241 [1884].

-

Give me the young man who has brains
enough to make a fool of himself.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist.
_Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881], ch. II "Crabbed Age and Youth"


It is better to be a fool than to be dead.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist.
_Virginibus Puerisque_ "Crabbed Age and Youth" [1881]

-

-

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous
woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1711]


My nose itched, and I knew I
should drink wine or kiss a fool.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation_ [1738]

-

To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary
to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool
than to discover who is a clever man.
--Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754—1838)
French statesman.
Quoted in _Reminiscences of Prince Talleyrand; Edited from the Papers
of the Late M. Colmache, Private Secretary to the Prince_ [2 vol. 1848].

How can you make a fool perceive that he is a
fool? Such a personage can no more see his own
folly than be can see his own ears.
--William Makepeace Thackeray (1811—1863)
English novelist.
"Dennis Haggarty's Wife" _Men's Wives_ [1843]

-

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our
side? And ain't that a big enough majority
in any town?
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, ch. 26 [1884]


April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of
what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894] ch. 21 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Better to keep your mouth shut and appear
stupid than to open it and remove all
doubt.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Attributed, perhaps apocryphal.

-

He who thinks himself wise,
O heavens! is a great fool.
--Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.
_Le Droit du Seigneur_, IV, i [5 acts, performed 1762, published 1763]

Nothing is more difficult than to bear the applause of fools,
and I would willingly be hissed if I could only reward the
'Bravi' of an ignoramus by boxing his ears.
--attributed to Carl Maria von Weber (1786—1826)
German composer and opera director.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world
are fools and the rest of us are in great danger
of contagion.
--Thornton Wilder (1897—1975)
American novelist and dramatist.
_The Matchmaker_, act I [1954]

If a man is a fool the best thing to
do is to encourage him to advertise
the fact by speaking.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
In a speech in Paris, France [10 May 1919].

A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the
age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.
--Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)
American architect.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [22 June 1958].

Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
--Edward Young (1683—1765)
English poet.
"Love of Fame" Satire II, l. 281. [1727]

-

The world is full of fools, and he who
would not see it should live alone and
smash his mirror.
--anon. Adaptation from an original form
attributed to Claude Le Petit (1640—1665) {ODTQ}.

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coxcomb [KOKS-kohm], noun:
1 A fool.
2. A vain, showy fellow; a conceited, silly man, fond of display;
a superficial pretender to knowledge or accomplishments.

fatuous (adj) ['fæ-chu-wês]
Smugly or unconsciously foolish, stupid.

spoony [SPOO-nee], adjective:
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.


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