Foolish Quotes - Page 21

• How are you to meet the swarm of foolish attachments, triflings, and undesirable inclinations which beset you? By turning sharply away, and thoroughly renouncing such vanities, flying to the Saviour's Cross, and clasping His Crown of thorns to your heart, so that these little foxes may not spoil your vines. Beware of entering into any manner of treaty with the Enemy; do not delude yourself by listening to him while intending to reject him.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Heart, Vanity, Attachment

  Saint Francis de Sales, Catholic Way Publishing (2015). “The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [16 Books]”, p.249, Catholic Way Publishing

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• It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mistake, Thinking, Men

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses”, p.64, Courier Corporation

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• When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves. That begins when we do what we should no matter how we feel about it.

  John C. Maxwell

  Motivational, Wise, Conquer The World

  John C. Maxwell (2015). “The Leadership Handbook: 26 Critical Lessons Every Leader Needs”, p.15, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Power is very much like the wind. It comes and goes; no one really owns it. People are foolish enough to think they possess power. You don't possess power, power possesses you. Power uses you.

  Frederick Lenz

  Thinking, Power, Wind

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• The worldly wisdom of the foolish man Is like a sieve, that does alone retain The grosser substance of the worthless bran: But thou, my soul, let thy brave thoughts disdain So coarse a purchase: O be thou a fan To purge the chaff, and keep the winnow'd grain: Make clean thy thoughts, and dress thy mixt desires: Thou art Heav'n's tasker, and thy God requires The purest of thy flow'r, as well as of thy fires.

  Francis Quarles

  Art, Men, Foolish Man

  Richard Crashaw, Francis Quarles, George Gilfillan (1857). “The Poetical Works of Richard Crashaw and Quarles' Emblems”, p.249

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• My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Wise, Mother, Eye

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1826). “Works of Maria Edgeworth: Tales of fashionable life. 1826.- -v. 7. Patronage. 1825”, p.2

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• Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. 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 for ever.

  Bertrand Russell

  Struggle, Quality, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.1, Lulu Press, Inc

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• One of the most ridiculous defenses of foreign aid is that it is a very small part of our national income. If the average American set fire to a five-dollar bill, it would be an even smaller percentage of his annual income. But everyone would consider him foolish for doing it.

  Thomas Sowell

  Fire, Average, Dollar Bills

  "Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays". Book by Thomas Sowell, 1999.

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• It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Expectations, Would Be, Weight

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.133, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• In Paris, everything's for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.

  Emile Zola

  Wise, Lying, Paris

  Emile Zola (1984). “The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one.

  Alexander Pope

  Self, Giving, Advice

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Chalmers (1807). “A Supplementary Volume to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Containing Pieces of Poetry, Not Inserted in Warburton's and Warton's Editions : and a Collection of Letters, Now First Published”, p.122

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• I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage.

  John Ruskin

  Average, Numbers, People

  John Ruskin, Kenneth Clark (1991). “Selected writings”, Penguin Group USA

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• The greatest men May ask a foolish question, now and then.

  John Wolcot

  Men, May, Now And Then

  John Wolcot (1812). “The works of Peter Pindar”, p.460

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• That a mouse of scandal whisks its foolish tail across the church's floor is not sufficient cause for clamorous leaping out of its windows.

  Austin O'Malley

  Church, Tails, Scandal

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• It would be foolish to describe the logistics hub as merely ugly, for it has the horrifying, soulless, immaculate beauty characteristic of many of the workplaces of the modern world.

  Alain de Botton

  Would Be, World, Ugly

  "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work". Book by Alain de Botton, 2009.

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• I have always considered The Merry Wives one of the worst plays, if not altogether the worst, that Shakespeare has left us. The wit for the most part is dreary or foolish; the tone is coarse and farcical; and the characters want the fine distinctive touches he so well knew how to give. If some luckless wight had written such a comedy in our time, I should like to see what the critics would say to it?

  George Henry Lewes

  Character, Play, Giving

  John Forster, George Henry Lewes (1896). “Dramatic Essays”

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• Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Clever, Passion, Men

  "The Moral Maxims and Reflections". Book by François de La Rochefoucauld. Maxim 6, 1678.

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• You're in bad shape when your emotions force you into acts which you know are foolish.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Shapes, Emotion, Force

  Robert A. Heinlein (2005). “Have Space Suit, Will Travel”, p.148, Simon and Schuster

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• The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Truth, Clever, Believe

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• The man who speaks and writes about art should refrain from censuring or pontificating. He will thus avoid doing anything foolish, for in the presence of primordial depth all art is but dream and nature.

  Hans Arp

  Dream, Art, Writing

  "Arp on Arp: poems, essays, memories". Book by Hans Arp, p. 327, 1958.

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• What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, "It will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks, when autumn comes?" Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery sparks, upon the moss.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Summer, Fall, Autumn

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.110

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• Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Mean, Passion, Heart

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2009). “Emile: Or, On Education”, p.384, The Floating Press

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• And, as for what is called improving conversation, that is merely the foolish method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Class, Trying, Criminals

  Oscar Wilde, Isobel Murray (2008). “Oscar Wilde - The Major Works”, p.248, Oxford University Press

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• True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.

  Herman Melville

  Work, Humanity, Wicked

  Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). “Correspondence”, p.464, Northwestern University Press

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• If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Wise, Art, Thinking

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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