Quotes About Folly

as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.

Prediction is the best circus act of all. But it is just an act. It's a carny turn. Stop doing it.

There you have the deferrer's delight. As long as you say maybe, or hope, or wish, you can use these as a rationale for not doing anything now. All wishing and hoping are a waste of time—the folly of fairyland residents.

These individuals are always enjoying simply because they see the folly of waiting to enjoy. It is a natural way of living, very much like that of a child or an animal. They are busy grabbing present-moment fulfillment, while most people spend their lives waiting for payoffs, and never being able to seize them.

Romanists argue that such is the obscurity of the Scriptures, that not only the people, but the Church itself needs the aid of tradition in order to their being properly understood. But if the Bible, a comparatively plain book, in one probable volume, needs to be thus explained, what is to explain the hundreds of folios in which these traditions are recorded? Surely a guide to the interpretation of the latter must be far more needed than for the Scriptures.

He who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition.

We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.

Thus did they nurse their folly, as the good wife of Tam O'Shanter did her wrath, "to keep it warm.

Much of the wisdom of one age, is the folly of the next.

Ridicule is the first and last argument of fools.

Crowd folly, the tendency of humans, under some circumstances, to resemble lemmings, explains much foolish thinking of brilliant men and much foolish behavior.

And I believe that having anything on my mind puts me in wilder spirits, apparently, than usual, but I am sure that my merriment to- day was no proof that I was happy. It was partly, I believe, from a mad spirit, like what drives wicked men to drinking, and partly from folly and levity.

Idiocy flows uphill towards power.

Vanity I am sensible, is my cardinal Vice and cardinal Folly, and I am in continual Danger, when in Company, of being led an ignis fatuus Chase by it, without the strictest Caution and watchfulness over my self.

After much Occasion to consider the Folly and Mischiefs of a State of Warfare, and the little or no Advantage obtained even by those Nations who have conducted it with the most Success, I have been apt to think that there has never been or ever will be any such Thing as a good War or a bad Peace.

Who loves not women, wine, and song, remains a fool his whole life long.

quote Euripides: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.")

The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.

The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.

The United States are here, as are we; our two nations have a common border which stretches for two thousand miles, more or less. Either we learn not to be distracted by our differences or we fight a war every generation, as the nations of Europe are in the habit of doing. I would not care to see such folly come to our shores.

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly.

Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.

Quos vilt perdere dementat' Whome the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad (Latin).