Quotes about Foolishness

When a fool is silent, he too is counted among the wise.

The fool speaks because he has to say something, but the wise speaks because he has something to say.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool

A foolish man is always doing,
Yet much remains to be done.

We are great fools. "He has passed his life in idleness," we say. "I have done nothing today." What! Haven't you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown what I could do." Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all. In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most little appendices and props.

The man who claims never to have known fear is either a fool or a liar.

Only a fool fights in a burning house.

"Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world"

It began with the Wisdom of Foolishness, a commitment to remain fluid, receptive, in process, part of the Membrane of Things as I struck out on that spiritual Route 66, the Experience Trail, determined to follow it to the end. It began with yours truly spontaneously ceasing to be myself and becoming someone else, assuming in the blink of an “I” the role of a drifter, a rolling stone, a wayward mariner lone and visionary on the High Seas of Chance and Possibility.

Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall...

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

rosencrantz: Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. The years like great black oxen tread the world And God the herdsman goads them on behind And I am broken by their passing feet.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

I pray-for fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.

The foolish and dead never change their opinions.

It used to be, in days gone by, though now it sounds real funny, that all that foolish spending stopped, when one ran out of money.

Inspiration: There is no man upon the earth, no foolish man or wise, No man of high or humble birth but somewhere in the skies Can find a star to lead him on if he will lift his eyes.

The foolish and the uneducated have little use for freedom.

Entrepreneurs don't give up easily. When they're successful, this is called "perseverance." Before they succeed, or if they fail, it's called "stubborn," "bullheaded," "arrogant," or "foolish."

The foolish and the dead are the only ones who never change their opinion.

To trust in the arm of flesh is foolishness; to suppose that we are self-sufficient is naive. This nation will survive and prosper only as God permits it to do so, and his permission rests upon our obedience to him and his gospel. He brought forth this nation. He gave us our liberty. He inspired our federal constitution. But it is for us to preserve these priceless blessings by our repentance and obedience to God. Our sins and haughty attitudes can only bring us sorrow.

A wise man will never rust out. As long as he can move or breathe he will be doing for himself, his neighbor, or for posterity. Almost to the last hour of his life Washington was at work; so was Newton. The vigor of their lives never decayed. No rust marred their spirits. It is a foolish idea to suppose that we must lie down and die because we are old. Who is old? Not the man of energy, not the laborer in science, art, or benevolence; but he only who suffers his energies to waste away and the springs of life to become motionless, on whose hands the hours draw heavily, and to whom all things wear the garb of gloom. Is he old? should not be asked, but is he active? Can he breathe freely and move with agility? There are scores of gray headed men whom we should prefer in any important enterprise to those young men who fear and tremble at approaching shadows, and turn pale at a lion in their path, or a harsh word or a frown.

Where duty is plain, delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety.

No man made great by death offers more hope to lowly pride than does Abraham Lincoln; for while living he was himself so simple as often to be dubbed a fool. Foolish he was, they said, in losing his youthful heart to a grave and living his life on married patience; foolish in pitting his homely ignorance against Douglas, brilliant, courtly, and urbane; foolish in setting himself to do the right in a world where the day goes mostly to the strong; foolish in dreaming of freedom for a long-suffering folk whom the North is as anxious to keep out as the South was to keep down; foolish in choosing the silent Grant to lead to victory the hesitant armies of the North; foolish, finally, in presuming that government for the people must be government of the people and by the people. Foolish many said; foolish many, many believed. This Lincoln, whom so many living friends and foes alike deemed foolish, hid his bitterness in laughter; fed his sympathy on solitude; and met recurring disaster with whimsicality to muffle the murmur of a bleeding heart. Out of the tragic sense of life he pitied where others blamed; bowed his own shoulders with the woes of the weak; endured humanely his little day of chance power; and won through death what life disdains to bestow upon such simple souls - lasting peace and everlasting glory.

Remember, the wisdom of God may appear as foolishness to men, but the greatest single lesson we can learn in mortality is that when God speaks and a man obeys, that man will always be right.

Lord, often have I thought to myself, I will sin but this one sin more, and then I will repent of it, and of all the rest of my sins together. So foolish was I, and ignorant. As if I should be more able to pay my debts when I owe more: or as if I should say, I will wound my friend once again, and then I will lovingly shake hands with him - but what if my friend will not shake hands with me?