Folly Quotes - page 19

Brutes find out where their talents lie A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature Who, when she loudly cries Forbear With obstinacy fixes there And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs. (Jonathan Swift)
Folly is the cloak of knavery. View quote
William Blake
Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly. View quote
Plutarch
Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy. View quote
Charles Caleb Colton
In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly. View quote
Desiderius Erasmus
It is folly alone that stays the fugue of Youth and beats off touring Old Age. View quote
Desiderius Erasmus
We need more humanity, more care, more love. There are those who expect a political system to produce that; and others who expect the love to produce the system. My own faith is that the truth of the future lies between the two and we shall behave humanly and a bit humanely, stumbling along, haphazardly generous and gallant, foolishly and meanly wise until the rape of our planet is seen to be the preposterous folly that it is. View quote
William Golding
[Thus] the people pay for the mad folly of their princes who, evilly minded, pervert judgement and give sentence crookedly. View quote
Hesiod
[It] is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness. View quote
Richard Dawkins
Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars. View quote
Tom Robbins
Away with that folly that her rights would be detrimental to her character - that if she were recognized as the equal to a man she would cease to be a woman! (Ernestine Rose)
His foe was folly and his weapon wit. View quote
Anthony Hope
This Old Testament - containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality - is by English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy - if there were anyone to be blasphemed - blacker and more insolent than any word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker. View quote
Annie Besant
We should be kind to each other whether Lazarus was raised or not. We should be just and forgiving whether Christ lived or not. All the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue, morality, or justice. Miracles belong to superstition, to ignorance, to fear and folly. Neither does it make any difference who wrote the Gospels. They are worth the truth that is in them and no more. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly. View quote
Arthur C. Clarke
In blaming others, fools their folly show, And most attempt to speak when least they know. View quote
Ludovico Ariosto
Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government. View quote
Learned Hand
This counsel Sidney complied with, yet he had to suffer for his folly, for, according to his own account, he was dragged out of bed by the Devil, three times in one night, by his heels. Whether this be true or not, one thing is certain, his contrition of soul was as great as a man could well live through. View quote
Lucy Mack Smith
I know love is eternal, so also are folly, lies and roses. View quote
Alice Borchardt
Softly and kindly remind yourself, ''I cannot own anything.'' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything. View quote
Wayne W. Dyer
But I think I can sincerely declare that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. (James Otis)
Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege. View quote
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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. View quote
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The enslavement of language in prattle is joined by the enslavement of things in folly almost as its inevitable consequence. View quote
Walter Benjamin
If you happen into company where the talk runs into party, obscemty, scandal, folly, or vice of any kind, you had better pass for morose or unsocial, among people whose good opinion is not worth having, than shock your own conscience by joining in conversation which you must disapprove of. View quote
James Burgh