Court Jester Quotes

Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter, ~ Joe Randazzo

People need the court jester, so I keep that smile on and keep going out there to do what I do. ~ Richard Simmons

It is occasionally used to imitate the court jester, who plays the fool but knows he is smarter than the king. He talks and talks and entertains, and no one suspects that he is more than just a fool. ~ Robert Greene

My father was a small claims court jester. ~ Steven Wright

An unemployed court jester is nobody's fool. ~ Kevin Hart

Because of your arrogance you have become nothing but a puppet, a court jester who believes that he has no choice other than what you remembered you could do a long time ago. Your only reason for existence now is to keep men in fear of what we see as Demons. They are the ones who control what may happen to them if they choose to take, what we are led to believe is the wrong path. The trail leads us away from his protection.
You are arrogant and because of your vanity, you have become blinded to the truth. Do you not know that you cannot take a soul from a man whose future has already been set? I also know this is someone you cannot overrule have the power to overrule? Even if you tried to take me from here, your power would be overruled. You are the tool of the carpenter, not the carpenter. ~ Peter Fryer

Oftentimes, actors are looked at as court jesters. They are not looked at as deep-thinking, smart people who do many other things or have gifts in other areas. ~ Goldie Hawn

Have you brought the moon to me?" she asked. "Not yet," said the Court Jester, "but I will get it for you right away. How big do you think it is?" "It is just a little smaller than my thumbnail," she said, "for when I hold my thumbnail up at the moon, it just covers it." "And how far away is it? asked the Court Jester. "It is not as high as the big tree outside my window," said the Princess, "for sometimes it gets caught in the top branches." It will be very easy to get the moon for you," said the Court Jester. "I will climb the tree tonight when it gets caught in the top branches and bring it to you." The he thought of something else. "What is the moon make of, Princess?" he asked. "Oh," she said, "it's made of gold, of course, silly. ~ James Thurber

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! ~ Danny Kaye

I'm a real paradox. Because I'm a very serious person, and I take my work very seriously. But I wrap it up in a court jester and a clown and make people laugh and make them feel good about themselves. ~ Richard Simmons

I do consider myself a clown and a court jester, and I do love to make people laugh, whether they're laughing with me or at me. ~ Richard Simmons

Lucien had taught him that fear was good; fear was an ally; that every lawyer was afraid when he stood before a new jury and presented his case. It was okay to be afraid - just don't show it. Jurors would not follow the lawyer with the quickest tongue or prettiest words. They would not follow the sharpest dresser. They would not follow a clown or court jester. They would not follow a lawyer who preached the loudest or fought the hardest. Lucien had convinced him that jurors followed the lawyer who told the truth, regardless of his looks, words, or superficial abilities. A lawyer had to be himself in the courtroom, and if he was afraid, so be it. The jurors were afraid too. ~ John Grisham

Both the Gypsies of the 19th century and the Bohemian scribblers and court jester types share similar personality traits. Both groups were known as drifters, dancers, minstrels and troubadours. And for their cheerful and pleasant approach to poverty. They were also known for stalking members of the opposite sex. Alcohol, words and the hue and glow of the artist's easel were what they lived for ~ Karl Wiggins

First of all I express sincerity. There's also that sense of humor, by which people sometimes learn to laugh about themselves. I mean, the situation is so serious that the people could go crazy because of it. They need to smile and realize how ridiculous everything is. A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that. Kings always had a court jester around. In that way he was always reminded how ridiculous things are. I believe that nations too should have jesters, in the congress, near the president, everywhere ... You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it's all ridiculous. ~ Sun Ra

of course I'm going to heaven. God needs a court jester. ~ Krissy Imperial

It's been important to cultures throughout history with the court jester and the witch doctor and the shaman - all preach the same thing. ~ RuPaul

Humor was a good way to hide the pain. ~ Rick Riordan

This traffic-court jester did more than tell jokes; he plucked out your subconscious and beat you silly with it, not until you were unrecognizable, but until you were recognizable. ~ Paul Beatty

In high school, I could get beaten up all the time, or I could be something better. I became the court jester. ~ Richard Simmons

The laughing, joking court jester, who is in reality a Shaman, has all the respect of a king, for there has always been an element of danger lurking about beneath the surface of his smile ~ Karl Wiggins

God, O God, where art thou? Thou art as distant to me as the lady combing rice in the Yunnan Province of China or a piece of floating space debris circling Pegasi. In this feeling-dead world of post traumatic stress, skepticism is king, queen, and court jester. ~ Chila Woychik

I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time. ~ John Newcombe

Name and fame! to fly sublime Through the courts, the camps, the schools Is to be the ball of Time, Bandied in the hands of fools. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.

An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field. ~ Jay Ingram

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription, who has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer - even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American or Mexican-American family being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of an attorney or due process, I know that that threatens my civil liberties. And I don't have to be a woman to be concerned that the Supreme Court is trying to take away a woman's right, because I know that my rights are next. It is that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. ~ Barack Obama

Court of St. James's, ~ Anonymous

For the first 200 years of our nation's history, corporations were never defined by the courts as persons with free speech rights under the First Amendment. Only in recent years have we witnessed this corporate takeover of our First Amendment, culminating in the Citizens United ruling. ~ John Bonifaz

What's important is the work that you're doing, not the country that you're in. I would much rather be in a play at the Royal Court than in Los Angeles making 'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.' ~ James Corden

Sometimes it is easy ... to enhance your prestige by not exercising your responsibility, but that's not been the tradition of the court. ~ Anthony Kennedy

Mangling my racket and an odd swearword on the court is not something I am proud of and it shouldn't happen, but even my coaches have told me that it's sometimes better to let it all out, the anger inside you, because keeping it bottled would just eat you up in the long term. ~ Novak Djokovic

One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say. ~ C.S. Lewis

The civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved, dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that. ~ Tom Lehrer

Famed basketball coach Phil Jackson, a meditator himself, arranged to have his players - first the Chicago Bulls, and then the L.A. Lakers - learn meditation as a way to improve their focus and teamwork. Jackson finds that mindfulness assists players in paying attention to what's happening on the court moment by moment. Such precise training in attention has paid off during tense playoffs; Jackson has led more teams to championships than any coach in NBA history. Meditation ~ Sharon Salzberg

The Supreme Court had the choice not only which way to rule, pro- or anti-gay marriage rights, but also how they were going to rule. They could have ruled just federalism, saying, "This isn't a matter for federal; this isn't a federal issue at all. States should decide it." Or they could decide it on equal protection grounds and say that, "Gay discrimination is wrong." ~ Barack Obama

Columbus was an Abraham, for he went out not knowing whither he went. Columbus was a Moses, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Only the man of faith is the man of power. Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible. God grant that to-day in that bark we may be wafted by God's blessing, and may land at last on the shores of Heaven, where we shall sing a sweeter Te Deum than that which awoke the echoes on the soil of virgin America, or those amid the splendors of the court at Barcelona. ~ Robert Stuart MacArthur

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy - is it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker - think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come. ~ Charles Dickens

Well, if you insist. But, my dearest flower, how ghastly to consider that such a mustache must shadow the clean-shaven grandeur of my domicile.' Lord Akeldama was rumored to insist that all his drones go without the dreaded lip skirt. The vampire had once had the vapors upon encountering an unexpected mustache around a corner of his hallway. Muttonchops were permitted in moderation, and only because they were currently all the rage among the most fashionable of London's gentlemen-about-town. Even so, they must be as well tended as the topiary of Hampton Court. ~ Gail Carriger

Privacy is the very essence of human existence. One wonders why the Indian Supreme Court took so long to reach that conclusion. ~ Kalyan C. Kankanala

With this new stupid Supreme Court ruling, secret money can come in on an unlimited level from corporations. Nobody knows where it comes from. That distorts the political situation in our country tremendously. Most of that money is spent on negative advertising that is tearing down the character and reputation of your opponent, and it works, although most American people say, "We don't like negative advertising," it works. ~ Jimmy Carter

There are days when I go out on the court and I feel like I can't miss a ball. ~ Maria Sharapova

Clarence Darrow, one of history's greatest lawyers, once noted "There is no such thing as justice, in or out of court." Perhaps because justice is a flawed concept that ultimately comes down to the decision of twelve people. People with their own experiences, prejudices, feelings about what defines right and wrong. Which is why, when the system fails us, we must go out and seek our own justice. ~ Emily Thorne

Have I crossed the line? I'm about to peer in through a window at Mik. For some reason, this feels worse than peering out a window, as I was just doing with a fairly clear conscience. After all, peeping toms peep in, not out. But this is still a public space, I argue to myself. I'm not peeping in his window. I would never do that. This is a cafe. Moreover, it's kind of my cafe. Mine and Karou's. In no legally recognized way, of course. We don't own it, except spiritually.
Which is a much higher court than actual real estate ownership. ~ Laini Taylor

How did the hearing go?" she asked.
"We won, sort of," Kaldar said. "We die at dawn."
"The court gave the Sheeriles twenty-four hours," William corrected.
"Yes, but 'we die at dawn the day after tomorrow' doesn't sound nearly
as dramatic."
"Does it have to be dramatic all the time?" Catherine murmured.
"Of course. Everyone has a talent. Yours is crocheting and mine is
making melodramatic statements. ~ Ilona Andrews

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word. ~ Jonathan Swift

Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation. ~ Alexander Hamilton

In thy discourse, if thou desire to please;
All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie:
Usefulness comes by labour, wit byease;
Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie. ~ George Herbert

Someday I'll be a lawyer… someday I'll bring justice to people who need it. Lawyers are either legalized liars… or saviors of the truth. ~ Rebecca McNutt

If China wants to build a new six-lane expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of villages in its path; in India, if you want to widen a two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years over compensation entitlements. ~ Shashi Tharoor

Sitting here on the steps of the Supreme Court smoking weed, under the "Equal Justice Under Law" motto, staring into the stars, I've finally figured out what's wrong with Washington, D.C. It's that all the buildings are more or less the same height and there's absolutely no skyline, save for the Washington Monument touching the night sky like a giant middle finger to the world. ~ Paul Beatty

When a court goes too far, it actually weakens our respect for judicial institutions. ~ Newt Gingrich

I love to be busy, and when I'm off the court, I do things I love. ~ Venus Williams

In 77 BC, Cicero used the evidence of a client's well-kept ledger to argue in court for his good character and trustworthiness, saying, 'day-books last for a month, ledgers for ever . . . day-books embrace the memory of a moment, ledgers attest the good faith and conscientiousness which ensure a man's reputation for all time'. ~ Jane Gleeson-White

Maybe I couldn't stop other people from judging me, but I could stop looking to them for approval. Maybe most people would never be able to accept me for who I really was - not the broadside makers, not the Court gossips, not even Nat - but I didn't have to follow suit.
I could still decide to accept myself. ~ Amy Butler Greenfield

For a beggar to live at court is not so much as the King to dwell with him in his cottage. ~ William Gurnall