Folly Quotes - page 18

I say, Archbishop, all this reforming gives a deuced deal of trouble, eh? eh? I wish they'd let it all alone...I say, Archbishop, what do you think I'd have done about this slavery business, if I'd had my own way? I'd have done nothing at all! I'd have left it all alone. It's all a pack of nonsense! Always have been slaves in all the most civilised countries; the Greeks and Romans had slaves; however, they would have their fancy, and so we've abolished slavery; but it's a great folly. (William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne)

And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Montaigne speaks of an "Abecedarian” ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C's, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, "bookful blockheads, ignorantly read.” There have always been literate ignoramuses, who have read too widely, and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all "sophomores.”.

Mortimer Adler

In my own world, sir, sad to say, human prejudice is matched only by human folly. Not a soul claims to be prejudiced, of course, as there are few who would describe themselves as fools...

Michael Moorcock

So that Christianity is so far from leaving us to live in the common ways of life, conforming to the folly of customs, and gratifying the passions and tempers which the spirit of the world delights in, it is so far from indulging us in any of these things, that all its virtues which it makes necessary to salvation are only so many ways of living above and contrary to the world, in all the common actions of our life. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians.

William Law

It is an act of folly on our part to expect the same truth, the same knowledge and the same power from both science and spirituality.

Sri Chinmoy

How often we should stop in the pursuit of folly, if it were not for the difficulties that continually beckon us onwards.

Arthur Helps

We frequently fall into error and folly, Dr. Johnson tells us, "not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered.” To compress, therefore, the great and obvious rules of life into brief sentences which are not easily forgotten is, as he said, to confer a real benefit upon us.

Logan Pearsall Smith

Man's knowledge, save before his fellow man, Is ignorance-his widest wisdom folly.

Theodore Watts-Dunton

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

George Orwell

Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived. (Bertrand Russell)

Revolt and revolution both wind up at the same crossroads the police, or folly.

Albert Camus

Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity.

Nicolas Chamfort

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom too fine spun.

Benjamin Franklin

There are limits beyond which your folly will not carry you.

Isaac Asimov

It's folly to think of blending Greek and Bulgar, Italian and Slovak, or making any of them rejoicingly American, when the land of adoption sits in judgement on the land from which he came. We need to be rescued from divisionary and fruitless pursuit of peace through super government.

Warren G. Harding

One of its [James A. Garfield's assassination] lessons, perhaps its most important lesson, is the folly, the wickedness, and the danger of the extreme and bitter partisanship which so largely prevails in our country.

Rutherford B. Hayes

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy these others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine. Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.

Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Beauty and folly are generally companions.

Baltasar Gracián

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.

Jane Austen

I saw myself,” Taran answered. "In the time I watched, I saw strength – and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other.
"But this, too, I saw,” he went on. "Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same. You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran. (Lloyd Alexander)

But I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature.

David Hume

O heart O heart if she'd but turn her head You'd know the folly of being comforted.

William Butler Yeats

This grieved me heartily ; and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.

Daniel Defoe

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan

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