Folly Quotes - Page 8

• All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

  James A. Garfield

  Government, People, Diversity

  "The Life of James Abram Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States". Book by Jonas Mills Bundy, 1881.

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• To take my work seriously would be the height of folly.

  Edward Gorey

  Height, Would Be

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• War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

  James Madison

  War, Afterlife, Progress

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• A law can be both economic folly and constitutional.

  Antonin Scalia

  Law, Economic

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• If thou remeber'st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not lov'd

  William Shakespeare

  Running, Love You, You Like It

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 4, l. [34]

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• Courts of law, and all the paraphernalia and folly of law cannot be found in a rational state of society.

  Robert Owen

  Law, Ears, States

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• [N]o party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Fun, Party, Invitations

  Desiderius Erasmus (1986). “Literary and Educational Writings: Panegyricus and Philippum Austriaeducem. Moriae encomium. Dialogus Julius exclusus e coelis. Institutio principis christiani. Querela pacis”

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• The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Forgiveness, Might, Pardon

  "Meditations of a Parish Priest". Book by Philibert Joseph Roux, Part 1, LXXI, 1866.

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• At times it is folly to hasten at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.

  Ovid

  Wise, Time, Delay

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• And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

  Thomas Keneally

  Writing, Mind, Trying

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• By your own folly you will be brought as low as your worst enemy wishes.

  Gautama Buddha

  Worst Enemy, Wish, Lows

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• Knowledge is but folly unless it is guided by grace.

  George Herbert

  Grace

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• Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy.

  Michael R. Burch

  Love Is, Holy

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• The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Wise, Men, Foolish Man

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• We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Distance, War, Example

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.115, Algora Publishing

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• A man of supreme folly: his life flies away while he is merely hoping to enjoy it.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Men, Fly Away, Enjoy

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• No mind is so good that it does not need another mind to counter and equal it, and to save it from conceit and bigotry and folly

  C. S. Lewis

  Mind, Doe, Needs

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• The service of love is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cool'd imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed.

  Thomas Browne

  Wise, Love Is, Men

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• When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly.

  Paul Krugman

  Vices, Usual, Virtue

  "Depression Economics Returns" by Paul Krugman, www.nytimes.com. November 14, 2008.

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• In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Age, Opinion, Argument

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

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• Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months! It is quite clear that were it beautiful and rational we would not alter anything that combined those two rare qualities. And wherever dress has been so, it has remained unchanged in law and principle for many hundred years.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Fashion, Art

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• It is not realistic or hard-headed to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgement, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief; forces ultimately more powerful than all the calculations of our economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.

  Robert Kennedy

  Powerful, Passion, Self Confidence

  Robert F. Kennedy's Day of Affirmation Address at the University of Capetown, South Africa, www.mtholyoke.edu. June 6, 1966.

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• The brash unbridled tongue, the lawless folly of fools, will end in pain. But the life of wise content is blest with quietness, escapes the storm and keeps its house secure.

  Euripides

  Wise, Pain, House

  Euripides (1954). “The Bacchae: And Other Plays: Ion, The Women of Troy, Helen, The Bacchae”

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• For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily wet to the skin with rain, and yet cannot persuade them to go out of the rain, they do keep themselves within their houses, seeing they cannot remedy the folly of the people.

  Thomas More

  Rain, People, House

  Thomas More (1997). “Utopia”, p.53, Wordsworth Editions

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• 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

  Thinking, Names, Soul

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