Fool Quotes | Beyond Motive

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Fool Quotes

"You think I am a fool, but you are a greater fool than I am."

Sitting Bull, Lakotan Statesman

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"It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere."

Voltaire, French Writer

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"The fools ran after me and I ran after the whores, foolish though I realized such a proceeding to be."

C. S. Forester, English Novelist

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"I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise."

Charles de Montesquieu, French Philosopher

Fool, Succeed, World

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"Be wise with speed; a fool at forty is a fool indeed."

Edward Young, English Poet

"The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world."

Marie de France, French Poet

Fool, Thinking, World

"Silence is the wit of fools."

Anatole France, French Novelist

Fool, Fools, Silence, Wit

"I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise."

Charles de Secondat, French Philosopher

Fool, Succeed, World

"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."

Hunter S. Thompson, American Journalist

"The haste of a fool is the slowest thing in the world."

Thomas Shadwell, English Dramatist

Fool, Haste, World

"A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough."

Bruce Lee, American Actor

Fool, Quick, Temper, Will

"The older I get, the less I suffer fools gladly."

Kathleen Turner, American Actress

"We should not fool ourselves. We are not one of the world's top teams any more."

Franz Beckenbauer, German Athlete

"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."

Lord Byron, British Poet

Fool, Fools, Satire, Song

"A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man."

Lord Melbourne, British Statesman

"The fool wanders, a wise man travels."

Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman

"No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

Anton Chekhov, Russian Dramatist

Fool, Fools, Nothing

"When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I'm no fool."

Levon Helm, American Musician

"The wise does at once what the fool does at last."

Baltasar Gracian, Spanish Philosopher

"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool."

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, British Novelist

"That's one of the peculiar things about bad moods - we often fool ourselves and create misery by telling ourselves things that simply are not true."

David D. Burns, American Writer

Fool, Misery, Moods

"But go on, valiant champion; you die not as a fool, though the apostate, unfaithful, and lukewarm ministers and professors of this generation think and say so."

Donald Cargill, Scottish Clergyman

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

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian Novelist

Fool, Man, Opinion

"He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave."

Andrew Carnegie, American Businessman

Fool, Reason, Will

"A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy."

John Churton Collins, English Critic

"In the days of Caesar, kings had fools and jesters. Now network presidents have anchormen."

Ted Koppel, American Journalist

Fool, Fools, Kings, Network, Now

"To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool."

Robert E. Sherwood, American Playwright

Fool, Man, Play

"The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention."

Franz Schubert, Austrian Composer

Fool, Man, Misfortune, Unhappiness

"My ears won't fool me. Even when I do a session on digital, we still warm it up somewhere in the process, in mastering or mixing, running the signal through some tubes somewhere."

Steve Cropper, American Musician

"It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed."

Horace, Roman Poet

Fool, Fools, Shame, Wounds

"A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times."

Lord Acton, British Historian

"Every man must wear out at least one pair of fools shoes."

Earl Derr Biggers, American Novelist

Fool, Fools, Man

"That's the penalty we have to pay for our acts of foolishness, someone else always suffers for them."

Alfred Sutro, American Playwright

Fool, Foolishness

"To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks."

Ben Jonson, English Poet

Fool, Man, May, Talk

"The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way."

Josh Billings, American Comedian

"However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him."

Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, French Poet

"A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion."

Minna Antrim, American Writer

Fool, Indigestion, Pleasure

"You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job."

Laurence J. Peter, Canadian Writer

"Never was patriot yet, but was a fool."

John Dryden, English Poet

"Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool."

Voltaire, French Writer

Fool, Knave, Will

"I don't fool myself. I can't see myself doing Shakespeare."

Sharon Tate, American Actress

Fool, Shakespeare

"Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Lord Byron, British Poet

Fool, Fools, Reason, Will

"When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools."

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

"There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon."

Samuel Butler, British Poet

Fool, Fools, World

"A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom."

Roald Dahl, British Novelist

Fool, Freedom, Writer

"It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak."

Neil Gaiman, British Author

"Those who claim to have had happy lives seem to be silly fools."

Taylor Caldwell, American Author

Fool, Fools, Silly

"Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of fools."

Og Mandino, American Author

Fool, Fools, Tomorrow

"Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done."

Al Bernstein, American Writer

"Fools are without number."

Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch Philosopher

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