Fools

 

"Neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered that they are fools. This is the first step toward becoming either estimable or agreeable; and until it is taken there is no hope."

Melbourne

 

Fool, n A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war-founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government....And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization."

-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary,

 

 

"A wise son maketh a glad father; but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother."

-Proverbs 10:1

 

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest."

-Fool, in Shakespeare's King Lear

 

 

"Don't be  fooled into believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary."

-Julius Rosenwald

 

 

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

-Oscar Wilde

 

 

"The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody."

-Booth Tarkington

 

 

"The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. it is the chief occupation of mankind."

-H.L. Mencken

 

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him."

-Proverbs 26:12

 

 

"A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years."

-English proverb

 

"Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish."

-John Ray English Naturalist

 

 

"No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions."

-Charles P. Steinmetz

 

 

"There is more credit in being abused by fools than praised by rogues."

-F.E. Smith

 

 

"Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines, in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever."

-Bertrand Russell

 

 

"..By good luck, you came along and pulled me off the stake, and from what you say I am sure the great Oz will give me brains as soon as we get to the Emerald City."

   "I hope so," said Dorothy earnestly, "since you seem anxious to have them."

   "Oh yes, I am anxious," returned the Scarecrow. "It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool."

-L.Frank Baum

The Wizard of Oz

 

 

"Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man."

-Thomas Hobbes

 

 

 

"it is foolish to say sharp, hasty things, but it is a deal more foolish to write 'em. When a man sends you an impudent letter, sit right down and give it back to him with interest ten times compounded-and then throw both letters in the wastebasket."

-Elbert Hubbard

 

 

"The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion."

-James Russell Lowell   American Poet, critic, diplomat

 

 

"The race of fools is infinite."

-Simonides of Ceos   Greek Poet

 

 

"A proverb distills the wisdom of the ages and only a fool is scornful of the commonplace."

-W. Somerset Maugham

 

 

"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

"Men  labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasure, which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. it is a fool's life, as they will find when they get tot he end of it, if not before."

-Henry David Thoreau

 

 

"The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

"Politeness is a device to keep fools at a distance."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

"The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, fools of the future."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

 

 

"The fool and the wise man are equally harmless; it the half-wise and the half-foolish who are most to be feared."

-Goethe

 

 

"Man is without any doubt the most interesting fool there is. Also the most eccentric. He hasn't a single written law, in his Bible or out of it, which has any but one purpose and intention-to limit or defeat a law of God."

-Mark Twain

 

 

"Don't be a fool and die for your country. Let the other sonofabitch die for his."

-George S. Patton

 

 

"No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions."

-Charles P. Steinmetz

 

 

 

"Power does not corrupt men; but fools, if they get into a position of power, corrupt it."

-G. Bernard Shaw

 

"I'm not one of those fools who think  that one life is as good as another, simply because it is a life; that a grasshopper is as good as a dog and a dog is as good as a man. You must recognize a hierarchy of existence."

-Aldous Huxley

 

 

"Who will sacrifice nothing, and enjoys all, is a fool."

-Johann Kaspar Lavater

 

 

"We are great fools. "He has spent his life in idleness," we say: "I have done nothing today." What, have you not lived? That is not only the most fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations....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."

-Montaigne

 

 

"A dictator....must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also fool himself."

-W. Somerset Maugham

 

 

"Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master: when we disobey the latter we are punished; in disobeying the former we are fools."

-Blaise Pascal

 

 

"I care not whether Man is Good or Evil, all

   that I care

Is whether he is a Wise Man or a Fool. Go,

   put off Holiness

And put on Intellect....."

-William Blake

 

 

"The world is made up, for the most part, of fools or knaves, both irreconcilable foes to truth; the first being slaves to a blind credulity, which we may properly call bigotry, and the last too jealous of that power they have usurped over the folly and ignorance of the others, which the establishment of the empire of reason would destroy."

-George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham

 

 

"No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace. For in peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons."

-Herodotus

 

 

"He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool."

-Charles Caleb Colton

 

 

"He who despairs of events is a coward, but he who hopes for the human lot is a fool."

-Albert Camus

 

 

"The category of the comic is connected with folly in the highest and lowest sense of that word. Play, however, is not foolish. it lies outside the antithesis of wisdom and folly."

-Johan Huizinga Homo Ludens

 

 

"In a word, the type of character produced by wealth is that of a prosperous fool."

-Aristotle

 

 

"We are ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God."

-Saint Augustine

 

 

"To confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that he has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly."

-Saint Augustine

 

 

"The family of Fools is ancient."

-Ben Franklin

 

 

"Patriotism," said the late Dr. Johnson, glowering at Boswell, "is the last refuge of scoundrels," But there is something worse: it is the first, last, and middle refuge of fools."

-H.L. Mencken

 

 

"He's a Fool that cannot conceal his Wisdom."

-Ben Franklin

 

 

"Any Fool can criticize, condemn and complain-and most fools do."

-Benjamin Franklin

 

 

"Men who know themselves are no longer fools; they stand on the threshold of the Door of Wisdom."

-Havelock Ellis

 

"God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents."

-William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

 

"He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool."

-Voltaire

 

"If there is one conclusion that seems clear; it is that smart people can act foolishly. If foolishness is in some sense the opposite of wisdom, it means that intelligence is no protection against it."

Robert J. Sternberg: "It's the Foolishness Stupid" American Interest Magazine Autumn 2008

 

 

"Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise."

-Cato

 

"A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions."

-Wilson Mizner

 

 

"Why fools are endowed by Nature with voices so much louder than sensible people possess is a mystery. It is a fact emphasized throughout history."

-Hertzler

 

 

"the majority never had right on its side. Never, I say. Intelligent men must wage war. Who is it that constitutes the majority of the population of the country? Is it the wise folk or the fools?....The stupid people are an over-whelming majority all over the world. The majority has might on its side-unfortunately; but right it has not....The minority is always in the right."

-Henrik Ibsen

 

 

"I can see how sincere, how passionately proletarian a religious prophet may be, that is the fate which sooner or later befalls him in a competitive society-to be founder of an organization of fools, conducted by knaves, for the benefit of wolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it befell Ignatius Loyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox, and John Calvin, and John Wesley."
-Upton Sinclair

 

 

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."

-Aeschylus

 

 

"One fool at least in every married couple."

-Henry Fielding (1707-54)

 

 

"Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle."

Viscount Melbourne

 

 

"The learned Fool writes his Nonsense in better Language than the unlearned; but still 'tis Nonsense."

-Ben Franklin

 

 

"It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united."

-Goethe

 

 

"A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool."

-Moliere

 

 

"It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies."

-Goethe

 

"Fortunately for themselves and the world, nearly all men are cowards and dare not act on what they believe. Nearly all our disasters come of a few fools having the courage of their convictions."

Coventry Patmore

 

"There is no security to be found in nuclear weapons. It's a fool's game."

-General George Lee Butler

 

 

'Anti-Semitism is the Socialism of fools."

-August Bebel

 

 

"  Don't you think one oughtn't to be optimistic?" the young man asked.

   Mr. Propter smiled, "What a curious question!" he answered. "What would you say about a man who installed a vacuum pump in a fifty-foot well? Would you call him an optimist?"

   "I'd call him a fool. "

   "So would I," said Mr. Propter. "And that's the answer to your question; a man's a fool if he's optimistic about any situation in which experience has shown that there's no justification for optimism....
-Aldous Huxley

After many a Summer Dies the Swan

 

 

 

"For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself."

-Stevenson

 

 

 

"The man who lives free from folly is not so wise as he thinks."

La Rochefoucauld

 

 

"If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your looking glass."

-Rebelais

 

"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month."

-Feodor Dostoyevsky

A Writers Diary

 

"A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him."

-Boileau

 

"A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool."

-Moliere

 

"A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely fool-proof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."

-Douglas Adams

 

"The Way of the Fool is a sort of balancing act on a tightrope. While the Fool has no wish to lose contact with his higher Self, he or she still wishes to gain experience of life: The Fool is pulled first this way, and then the next. Through such garnering of knowledge, he or she not only enriches the Ego, but also satisfies the need of the Godhead (of which the Ego is part) to explore the material plane. On the other hand, the Fool has no wish to gain experience of superficial life. His or her aim is always to pierce behind the surface, to penetrate the illusion of things, and to tap the reality hidden behind the snaring web of illusion. The Fool knows that the material plane, which so many people assume is the ultimate reality, is the most illusory of all things-a maya or shadow play. We may trace in this belief an underlying conflict of the one who has elected to follow the Path of the Fool: he or she wishes to explore the material world in the full knowledge that the material world is a minefield of unrealities."

David Ovason

The Zelator

 

"According to Mark Hedsel, the name ass, which is one of the names given to the body in the Way of the Fool, is intended to recall the Feast of Fools. Mark pointed out that, in the legends attached to the Christian Mysteries, the ass had been redeemed because it carried Christ in triumph into Jerusalem. As a sign of this redemption, Christ had left upon its shoulders a dark cross. This is the esoteric parable on the idea that our physical body, made from the Four Elements, is also the fourfold cross we must bear."

David Ovason

The Zelator

 

 

"....There are two kinds of Fools. The real Fool is the most sincere of mortal's: the Court Fool and his kind-the trifling, jesting buffoon-but simulate the family virtue, and steal the family name, for sordid purposes.

   The life of the Fool proper is full of the poetry of faith. He may run after a will-o-the-wisp, while the Wise deride; but to him it is a veritable star of hope. He differs from his fellow-mortals chiefly in this, that he sees or believes what they do not, and consequently undertakes what they never attempt. If he succeed in his endeavor, the world stops laughing, and calls him a Genius: if he fail, it laughs the more, and derides his undertaking as A Fool's Errand."

A Fools Errand..by one of the Fools

 

Book: The Zelator..by David Ovason...the Secret Journals of Mark Hedsel

 

   "The Fool is the one who looks through this material illusion- the mat sees through matter, so to speak. This makes him one who is prepared to suffer. Only a Fool would be prepared to suffer. I do not have in mind merely that the Fool is prepared-or at least, should be prepared-to jump into the unknown, into the great void, perhaps even into the mouth of a waiting crocodile.' 

David Ovason

The Zelator

 

"To what purpose, we must ask, would anyone wish to follow the Way of the Fool? It is no easy role to play. The Way of the Fool is so open to misunderstanding and mockery. To the casual glance-which is the glance of most people-it does not even appear to be a Way at all. At least, not in a Way in the ancient meaning of a sacred Way, or an initiatory Way, like the the Isaac Ancient Road of Hermes, or the Way of the Monk, with its hidden pomp of outer clothes, pectoral crosses and other symbols, fronting its dour seriousness. Yet there is such a Way, even if it is only one followed by men and women striving to establish a Spiritual identity for themselves divested of outer trappings

The Zelator

 

And if you choose the Way of the Fool, do not fear appearing to be a Fool in the eyes of the world, for, if you do not stray too far from the ancient road, in the eyes of God you will always remain the beloved Fool.

The Zelator

 

"The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom spun too fine."

-Ben Franklin

 

"The public! the public! How many fools does it take to make up a public?"

-Chamfort

 

"Fortune makes him fool, whom she makes her darling."

-Bacon

 

"Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented Kissing."

-Swift    Polite Conversation

 

 

"Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise."

-Cato the Censor

 

"He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool."

-Albert Camus

*"hope" the gateway drug  ed.

 

"Things are bad and getting worse, any fool can see that,"

-John Derbyshire

We Are Doomed

 

 

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."

Aeschylus

 

 

"His soul will never starve for exploits or excitements who is wise enough to be made a fool of. To be "taken in" everywhere is to see the inside of everything."

G.K. Chesterton

 

 

"Many passenger stop to take their pleasure or make their profit in (Vanity) Faire, instead of going onward to the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the place that people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere dreamers, and that if the fabled brightness of the Celestial City lay but a bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not be fools enough to go thither."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

 

"....When the naive young Fool finally tumbles over the precipice, he falls into the world of experience. Now his journey has really begun. Along the way he'll meet all the teachers and tempters-the tempters are teachers, too-and challenging situations that a person is likely to meet in the task of his or her growing. The Fool is potentially everybody, but not everybody has the wisdom or the guts to play the Fool. A lot a folks don't know what's in that bag they're carrying. and they're all too willing to trade it for cash. Inside the bag, they have every tool they need to facilitate their life's journey, but they won't even open it up and glance inside. Subconsciously, the goal of all of us out-of-control primates is essentially the same, but let me assure you of this: the only ones who'll ever reach that goal are the one who have the courage to make fools of themselves along the way."

-Tom Robbins

Half Asleep in frog Pajamas

 

 

"Who forms the majority in any country? I think we'd all have to agree that the fools are in a terrifying, overwhelming majority all over the world! But in the name of God it can't be right that the fools should rule the wise!.....The majority has the power, unfortunately.....but the majority is not right! The ones who are right are a few isolated individuals like me! The minority is always right!"

Ibsen

Enemy of the People 1882

 

 

"A fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan."

T. Boone Pickens

 

 

"A wise man will be Master of His Mind

    A Fool will be its slave."

-Publilius Syrus

 

"When you fool a fool you strike a blow for intelligence."

-Giacomo Casanova De Seingalt

 

 

"the ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

-Herbert Spencer

 

 

"The may Games, although probability taking place at this period, had not yet come into the open and will be dealt with later. The Feast of Fools was celebrated on the occasion of the Feast of the Circumcision, which corresponds to the Feast of Janus, but in no other way did it coincide with the activities of the Christian Church.

   It was chiefly the affair of the minor clergy, true, but everything which they did in the way of celebration consisted of mockery and parody of the religion of which they were supposed to be priests.

   The festival was centered in France, but even within the borders of this country a considerable variation was to be found in the ceremony.

   At Beauvais, a donkey was introduced into the church, and the celebrant of the mass, instead of saying, 'Ite missa est' brayed three times. At St. Omer, a "bishop' and a 'dean' of fools took part in the services. The latter was censed in a burlesque fashion, and the whole office was recited at the pitch of the voice and even with howls.

   -Burgo partridge

A History of Orgies

 

 

"The Fool's journey ends on Sirius C"

-Tom Robbins

   **************

Book: "Bouvard and Pecuchet" by Gustave Flaubert Translated by Mark Polizzotti

Book: "The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self Deception" by Robert Trivers

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