Folly Quotes

Folly always knows the answer.

I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly.

The three filters [against folly] operate through these particular questions: Literacy: What are the words? Numeracy: What are the numbers? Ecolacy: And then what?

Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him! That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?

Beauty and folly are old companions.

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.

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

There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

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

Will you tell me how to prevent riches from producing luxury? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?

Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There's naught in this life sweet But only melancholy; O sweetest melancholy!

It is fortunate that Literature is in no ways injured by the follies of Collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily defend the good.

Folly is like the growth of weeds, always luxurious and spontaneous; wisdom, like flowers, requires cultivation.

Mingle some brief folly with wisdom now: To be foolish is sweet at times.

It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of political folly.

When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.

Sweet bird that shunn'st the nose of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song.

Tyranny is usually tempered with assassination, and Democracy must be tempered with culture. In the absence of this, it turns into a representation of collective folly.

There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than to attempt to correct natural infirmities of those we love.

What you mean by 'peace' is nothing more than the endless repetition of human folly.

Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.

Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.

February... Now more than ever one must remind oneself that it is wasteful folly to wish that time would pass, or - as the puritanical old saying used to have it - to kill time until it kills you.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow man.

Ask Anthony Hopkins how he makes his characters come to life and he just shrugs. I don't know. If I knew, I wouldn't be able to do it. As they say: Where ignorance is bliss it's folly to be wise.

Such is the supreme folly of man that he labours so as to labour no more.

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.

I try not to think about legacy because it is all ­folly. If you study history, even recent history, you'll find many people who were quite significant in their time but are completely forgotten.

The world is filled with folly and sin, And Love must cling, where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win; But one isn't loved every day.

Folly enlarges men's desires while it lessens their capacities.

Quantum est in rebus inane! How much folly there is in human affairs.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

Opponents of globalisation may see it as a new folly, but it is neither particularly new, nor, in general, a folly.

It is folly to abstain all day long from food, but fail to abstain from sin and selfishness.

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.

Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.

To be bowed by grief is folly; Naught is gained by melancholy; Better than the pain of thinking, Is to steep the sense in drinking.

London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.

Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.

Answer not a fool according to his folly,lest thou also be like unto him.

And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly.

Fools are not mad folks.

But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable, to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!