Folly Quotes

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not. ~ Leonid Andreyev

He was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the nets, and all alone, he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it.

Sometimes if Arsheesh was there Shasta would say, 'O my Father, what is there beyond that hill?' And then if the fisherman was in a bad temper he would box Shasta's ears and tell him to attend to his work. Or if he was in a peaceable mood he would say, "O my son, do not allow your mind to be distracted by idle questions. For one of the poets has said, 'Application to business is the root of prosperity, but those who ask questions that do not concern them are steering the ship of folly towards the rock of indigence'.

Shasta thought that beyond the hill there must be some delightful secret which his father wished to hide from him. In reality, however, the fisherman talked like this because he didn't know what lay to the North. Neither did he care. He had a very practical mind. ~ C.S. Lewis

It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man's art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit. ~ William Shakespeare

In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquility; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there ~ Jane Austen

The leader of the Christian army - Cardinal Pelagius himself - had warned the friar from Assisi that it would be folly to traverse the battlefield between the two armies to seek out this Sultan Malik al-Kamil. ~ Paul Moses

It is fortunate that youth never recognizes its ignorance, for if it did it would not find the courage to get the habit of endurance. It is perhaps an instinct of the blood and flesh which prevents this knowledge and allows the boy to become the man who will live to see the folly of his existence. ~ John Edward Williams

Ernst Dwinger in his Siberian Diary
mentions a German lieutenant - for years a prisoner in a camp where cold and hunger were almost
unbearable - who constructed himself a silent piano with wooden keys. In the most abject misery,
perpetually surrounded by a ragged mob, he composed a strange music which was audible to him alone.
And for us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished
beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection
which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity. ~ Albert Camus

Maxims serve the wise;
folly enslaves fools. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Arm yourself with wisdom,
arm yourself with knowledge;
folly is a fierce lion roaming the streets. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly. ~ Sophocles

yet she could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman, not a girl, of a woman confessing, as to her they often did, some scrape, some folly. And whether it was pity, or their beauty, or that she was older, or some accident-like a faint scent, or a violin next door (so strange is the power of sounds at certain moments), she did undoubtedly then feel what men felt. ~ Virginia Woolf

It would be an act of wisdom to depart immediately… but wisdom is itself the product of knowledge; and knowledge, unfortunately, is generally the product of foolish doings. So, to add to my own knowledge and to enhance my wisdom I shall remain another day, to see what occurs. ~ Roger Zelazny

The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. ~ Thomas More

Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than discretion. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

Wisdom is reliable;
folly is unfaithful. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Life may be a grand folly, as you say, but it is harder to appriciate the joke when you're always the butt of it. ~ Richard Russo

It is an amiable part of human nature, that we should love our animals; it is even better to love them to the point of folly, than not to love them at all. ~ Stevie Smith

Part of [having uncommon sense] is being able to tune out folly, as opposed to recognizing wisdom. If you bat away many things, you don't clutter yourself. ~ Charlie Munger

That folly of old age which is called dotage is peculiar to silly old men, not to age itself. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

FLIGHT OF FOLLY. WOMAN TRAPPED IN CAGE OF OPEN DOORS. ~ Janette Turner Hospital

Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart
Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart. ~ Sophocles

This again was the curious thing about Ambrosio, his willingness to live fully inside the moment, whatever its virtue or folly, without regard for the future. ~ Michael Paterniti

I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies-thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us. ~ D.H. Lawrence

There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man. ~ Herman Melville

Money power means budget power and it is folly to imagine that the citizen can control government unless he can control its budget. ~ E.C. Riegel

Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel. ~ William Hazlitt

Ignore folly;
walk away from it.
Pay attention to wisdom;
seek it. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

But if we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. I am grieved to learn of how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal or caste considerations. This way lies not only folly, but disaster. Let us help the backward groups by all means, but never at the cost of efficiency. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

It is my understanding from an intuitive relationship with animals that it is complete folly to try to figure out what is right or wrong for humans by observing what other animals are doing. Observe any animal and you will quickly figure out that a hawk does not try to hunt like an eagle. The wolf does not try to be a lion. ~ Linda Bender

Every woman whether rich or poor, married or single, has a circle of influence within which, according to her character, she is exerting a certain amount of power for good or harm. Every woman, by her virtue or her vice, by her folly or her wisdom, by her levity or her dignity, is adding something to our national elevation or degradation. A community is not likely to be overthrown where woman fulfills her mission, for by the power of her noble heart over the hearts of others, she will raise that community from its ruins and restore it again to prosperity and joy. ~ John Angell James

The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men, their greed and arrogance, and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

So I ask my pride that it always go along with my wisdom. And when my wisdom leaves me one day alas - it loves to flyway - let my pride then fly with my folly. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's ~ Aldous Huxley

People try to get out of themselves and to escape from the man. This is folly; instead of transforming themselves into angels, they turn into beast; instead of lifting, they degrade themselves. These transcendental humors frighten me, like lofty and inaccessible heights. ~ Michel De Montaigne

But he had something else to curse
his own viscious folly, which now seemed as mad and unaccountable to him as almost all our follies and vices do when their promptings have long passed away. ~ George Eliot

Covering discretion with a coat of folly. ~ William Shakespeare

What an absolute folly love was. Talk about a flawed concept. ~ Richard Russo

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly. ~ Horace

Taxes are indeed very heavy -
We are taxed twice as much by our Idleness.
Three times as much by our Pride.
And four times as much by our Folly. ~ Benjamin Franklin

His mother had always been a headstrong woman, and with her grayish-white mane and unsmiling face, she appeared as regal and intimidating as she had ever been. Still, seeing her through other people's eyes, Hanfeng realized that all that made her who she was - the decades of solitude in her widowhood, her coldness to the prying eyes of people who tried to mask their nosiness with friendliness, and her faith in the notion of living one's own life without having to go out of one's way for other people - could be deemed pointless and laughable. Perhaps the same could be said of any living creature: a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, unaware of the beak of an approaching bird; an egret mesmerized by its reflection in a pond, as if it were the master of the universe; or Hanfeng's own folly of repeating the same pattern of hope and heartbreak, hoping despite heartbreak. ~ Yiyun Li

It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard. ~ Paul Brunton

In public at least, Roberts himself purports to have a different view of the Court than his conservative sponsors. "Judges are like umpires," he said at his confirmation hearing. "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Elsewhere, Roberts has often said, "Judges are not politicians." None of this is true. Supreme Court justices are nothing at all like baseball umpires. It is folly to pretend that the awesome work of interpreting the Constitution, and thus defining the rights and obligations of American citizenship, is akin to performing the rote […] task of calling balls and strikes. When it comes to the core of the Court's work, determining the contemporary meaning of the Constitution, it is ideology, not craft or skill, that controls the outcome of cases. ~ Jeffrey Toobin

Many brief follies
that is what you call love. And your marriage puts an end to many brief follies, with a single long stupidity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Death is more merciful than hope itself! There is nothing surprising in this, for death is divinely appointed, while hope is the creation of human folly. Both end in frustration. Am I destined to lead a life of endless frustration?
-(The Beginning and the End) ~ Naguib Mahfouz

To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse. ~ John Adams

HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable. ~ Ambrose Bierce

دختر

درختي به دستانم سبز شده,
شيره بر بازوانم جوشيده,
درخت در سينه‏ام شكفته --
سر به زير,
شاخه‏ها ,چون بازوان, از درونم مي‏بالند.

درخت هستي تو ,
خزه‌اي تو ,
بنفشه‏هايي كه باد در او مي‌پيچد,
كودكي هستي بلند بالا ,
و جهان اين همه را حماقت مي‌داند
::
A Girl

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast--
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child -- so high -- you are,
And all this is folly to the world ~ Ezra Pound

No one can ever make you feel inferior without your permission, Tory. Don't give it to them. Realize that it's their own insecurities that make them attack you and others. They're so unhappy with themselves that the only way they can feel better is by making everyone as unhappy as they are. Don't let those people steal your day, baby. You hold your head high and know that you have the one thing they can never take away from you. (Theo)
What's that, Papa? (Tory)
My love. Your mother's love and the love of your family and true friends. Your own self-respect and sense of purpose. Look at me, Torimou, people laugh at me all the time and say that I'm chasing rainbows. They told George Lucas that he was a fool for making Star Wars – they used to even call it Lucas's Folly. Did he listen? No. And if he'd listened to them you wouldn't have had your favorite movie made and think of how many people would never have heard the phrase 'May the Force be With You.' (Theo) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow man. ~ Khalil Gibran

If there be ground for you to trust, as you do, in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did from the fall of man to prepare the way for it, is in vain. Consider what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, that all those things were done so needlessly; when, instead of all this, He might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily. ~ Jonathan Edwards

When our new armies are ready it seems folly to send them to Flanders, where they will chew barbed wire, or be wasted in futile frontal attacks. ~ H. H. Asquith

Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass? ~ Michel De Montaigne

The Lord had been very gracious, and spoke peace to me in the time of my distress, and I now most ungratefully turned again to folly; at times I felt sharp reproof, but I did not get low enough to cry for help. ~ John Woolman

Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself; and there was left only a brain which played with ideas, and a body that went delicately down pleasant ways. And I could not believe as my fellows believed, nor could I love them, nor could I detect anything in aught they said or did save their exceeding folly: for I had lost their cordial common faith of what use they made of half-hours and months and years ... I had lost faith in the importance of my own actions, too. There was a little time of which the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. ~ James Branch Cabell

An autobiography should give the reader opportunity to point out the author's follies and misconceptions. ~ Claud Cockburn

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason. ~ James Madison

The problems you have are there for me to help you solve, not to have with you. ~ Justin K. McFarlane Beau

When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly. ~ Paul Krugman

The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought. Nuclear capability must be reduced to zero, globally, permanently. There is no other option. ~ Queen Noor Of Jordan

We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is wisdom to recognize necessity when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The greatest wisdom consists in enjoying the present and making this enjoyment the goal of life, because the present is all that is real and everything else merely imaginary. But you could just as well call this mode of life the greatest folly: for that which in a moment ceases to exist, which vanishes as completely as a dream, cannot be worth any serious effort. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things. ~ Anton Chekhov

To evoke another great phrase of the American revolutionary heritage - widely though inconclusively attributed to Thomas Jefferson - the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Such a phrase is merely trite, however, unless we consider its deeper implications. For the French revolutionaries, as for so many regimes that have succeeded them across the world up to the present day, the call for vigilance against enemies, both external and internal, was the first step on the road to the loss of liberty, and lives.

Of far more significance, and the true and tragic lesson of the epic descent into The Terror, is the summons to vigilance against ourselves - that we should not assume that we are righteous, and our enemies evil; that we can see clearly, and to others are blinded by malice or folly; that we can abrogate the fragile rights of others in the name of our own certainty and all will be well regardless.

If we do not honor the message of human rights born in the revolutions of 1776 and 1786, as the French in their case most certainly failed to do, we too are on the road to The Terror. ~ David Andress

Knowing the future is the flower of the Way, and the beginning of folly. ~ Laozi

. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and this world the only kings available are finite and sinful. Listen to C. S. Lewis describe why he believes in democracy:

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. . . I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.1

If there could be a king who is not limited in his wisdom and power and goodness and love for his subjects, then monarchy would be the best of all governments. If such a ruler could ever rise in the world - with no weakness, no folly, no sin - then no wise and humble person would ever want democracy again.

The question is not whether God broke into the universe as a king. He did. The question is: What kind of king is he? What difference would his kingship make for you? ~ John Piper

This is absurd, that mortals blame the gods! They say we cause their suffering, but they themselves increase it by their folly. ~ Emily Wilson

Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures. ~ Edward Gibbon

America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice. ~ Thomas Paine

There is such malice, treachery, and dissimulation, even among professed friends and intimate companions, as cannot fail to strike a virtuous mind with horror; and when Vice quits the stage for a moment, her place is immediately occupied by Folly... ~ Tobias Smollett

Popular Christianity has for its emblem a gibbet, for its chief sensation a sanginary execution after torture, for its central mystery is an insane vengeance bought off by a trumpery expiation. But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the sacred mystery of equality and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance. ~ George Bernard Shaw

As I remember his laugh, there was nothing mad about it, it was more like the laugh of someone who has been the victim of a practical joke, a farce in which he had believed until suddenly he realized his folly. ~ Guy Sajer

The burden of Karma is heavy. All alike have heavy debts to pay. Yet none, so the Wisdom teaches, is ever faced with more than he can bear. Whether or not we can grin, we must bear it, and it is folly to attempt to run away. ~ Christmas Humphreys

What are books but folly, and what is an education but an arrant hypocrisy, and what is art but a curse when they touch not the heart and impel it not to action? ~ Louis Sullivan

I think it's a lovely idea, but it will not pass the Congress. I live in a world of realities. The policy of our country is that we can drill our way to independence. I think that's a march to folly. ~ Anna Eshoo

The Folly had last been refurbished in the 1930s when the British establishment firmly believed that central heating was the work, if not of the devil per se, then definitely evil foreigners bent on weakening the hardy British spirit. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

The situation suddenly felt absurd, and he had to control the urge to laugh out loud, the sheer folly of the midnight escapade catching up with him. He had imagined his career as an impostor ending in so many ways. Being caught sneezing halfway up a trellis whilst trying to burgle a fourth-rate hotel had not been one of them. ~ Paul Fraser Collard

The thin end of the sensible clothes wedge had been inserted in society by the disgraceful Mrs Bloomer a decade and a half before the year of which I write; but that early attempt at the trouser suit had been comprehensively defeated by the crinoline--a small fact of considerable significance in our understanding of the Victorians. They were offered sense; and chose a six-foot folly unparalleled in the most folly-ridden of minor arts. ~ John Fowles

Clearly the current system has failed. Why not give peace and compassion a chance? There is a terribly tragic folly behind desires for world peace, while still demanding the mass murder of animals for food. ~ Mango Wodzak

Wracked with a hangover I do my muttering over a Black Velvet, a union of champagne and stout. Don't be swindled into believing there's any cure for a hangover. I've tried them all: iced tomatoes, hot clam juice, brandy peaches. Like the common cold it defies solution. Time alone can stay it. The hair of the dog? That way lies folly. It's as logical as trying to put out a fire with applications of kerosene. ~ Tallulah Bankhead

Given a choice between a folly and a sacrament, one should always choose the folly - because we know a sacrament will not bring us closer to god and there's always the chance that a folly will. ~ Desiderius Erasmus

If it be not a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is indeed folly to put ourselves to any trouble and expense in order to free them. ~ Samuel Hopkins

What if God were not exactly truth, and if this could be proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I think of the love of God as a great river, pouring through us even as the waters pour through our ravine at floodtime. Nothing can keep this love from pouring through us, except of course our own blocking of the river. Do you sometimes feel that you have got to the end of your love for someone who refuses and repulses you? Such a thought is folly, for one cannot come to the end of what one has not got. We have no store of love at all. We are not jugs, we are riverbeds. ~ Amy Carmichael

Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify ... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority? ~ Louis Antoine De Saint-Just

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. ~ Carl Sagan

In life I've rung all changes through,
Run every pleasure down,
'Midst each excess of folly too,
And lived with half the town. ~ Anthony Trollope

Where there is wisdom there is life,
and where there is evil there is death.
Folly is your enemy and so are fools;
wisdom is your friend and so are the wise. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Heed the still small voice that so seldom leads us wrong, and never into folly. ~ Marie Anne De Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise Du Deffand

The Kingdom of Heaven," said the Lord Christ, "is among you." But what, precisely, is the Kingdom of Heaven? You cannot point to existing specimens, saying, "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" You can only experience it. But what is it like, so that when we experience it we may recognize it? Well, it is a change, like being born again and relearning everything from the start. It is secret, living power - like yeast. It is something that grows, like seed. It is precious like buried treasure, like a rich pearl, and you have to pay for it. It is a sharp cleavage through the rich jumble of things which life presents: like fish and rubbish in a draw-net, like wheat and tares; like wisdom and folly; and it carries with it a kind of menacing finality; it is new, yet in a sense it was always there - like turning out a cupboard and finding there your own childhood as well as your present self; it makes demands, it is like an invitation to a royal banquet - gratifying, but not to be disregarded, and you have to live up to it; where it is equal, it seems unjust; where it is just it is clearly not equal - as with the single pound, the diverse talents, the labourers in the vineyard, you have what you bargained for; it knows no compromise between an uncalculating mercy and a terrible justice - like the unmerciful servant, you get what you give; it is helpless in your hands like the King's Son, but if you slay it, it will judge you; it was from the foundations of the world; it is to come; it is her ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The customs of the world are so many conventional follies. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse. ~ John Quincy Adams

To think that the wise are not capable of folly is not wise. ~ Chris Brady

It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door. ~ Publilius Syrus

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. ~ Adam Smith

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld